In California, even the worst
of us is forgiven: flooding roads
result in freeway superbloom, birds
make nests out of all our trash.
And regardless of drought, jacarandas
spike purple in July, their roots
cracking the concrete. As soon as, I
tripped underneath one, tore the pores and skin
off my knees. And ultimately eliminated
the leftover scars of childhood.
My father fell as soon as outdoors
the dirtiest condo I lived
in that ignored the freeway
on a road the place nobody walked. But
when he fell, some sort stranger
materialized out of the smog and
lifted him to his toes.
I believed then it was an accident,
the stranger a great omen,
and raised no alarm over what
I might name now his skinny legs.
However there’s no tree to bloom
from his grave, his physique
the alternative of a seed. After I
can now not bear the burden, I
declutter my closet, my drawers.
Beneath a jacaranda, I depart
my deserted gadgets on the sidewalk,
and in solely hours, my errors
are absorbed by the town.
Tonight, with the objects gone,
I attempt to consider my regrets
with tenderness, dealing with them
the way in which somebody who loves me
would possibly contact an outdated scar.