Falling blossoms.
Blossoms in bloom are also
falling blossoms.
-Ryokan, Sky, Above, Great Wind p. 2
In my throat lives a woman
who bangs her elbows against the soft tissue
of my neck, I loosen for her, exhale
she asks, “what have you ever held onto
that has not passed?”
I think of sisters I never had, but joined hands with
of days I could have fused with the sun
of those who use the word “friend” conditionally
and do not notice
people have seasons too
I think of breath, the way I need it but can never keep it in
she asks, “so how do you let go?”
Painfully, once, like a blood-laced purge,
like a terrified child who must say good-bye to the weekend away
but when I saw the still pond
and my face in it,
weathered, scarred,
interrupted with algae blooms or sometimes ripples,
I said to that face,
“I just want you to be happy,”
and cried for all of my connections, severed and hanging
I said to the sky,
“Tell them this is all I want,
I want them to be happy.”
Not as a craving, as a fleeting high--
but in the way the world is fed both by sun
and by rain, by warmth and by cold.
Then the woman asked,
“how will I help you remember this?”
By bowing yourself to the base of my throat
gently, beneath the epiglottis, into the folds of my voice
and whispering down
down to the ancient, beating globe
in my breast
whispering,
“tell her the truth.”