Flirting or Mourning?

I mean, I know where the flowers came from, or at least I think I do: There is a tangle of rose bushes hanging over a wall just a few doors down from where I took the picture.

What I’m wondering is, what inspired someone to clip a few roses and leave them here? Right here, on a block that, thanks to an industrial bakery, smells like 20 cakes cooling at once. Here, a block away from a convenience store where a man is speaking to six cruisers’ worth of police officers. Here, a quarter of a mile east of a hovering helicopter. Here, where rolling carts filled with scrap metal of dubious provenance trundle by. Here, where I’ve found myself standing on a corner that smells like a birthday party but looks like a highway fatality shrine.