Poetry

Cherry communion

James Bowden

A shower of pink petals, a lap around the lake
–this is how I came into the world, and continue to come each year.

21 springs ago, I cried for the first time.
Must we all enter the void kicking and screaming?
11 springs ago, my father gave me a pink MP3 player.
I never learned how to give a good gift.

2 springs ago, I renounced the first person I’d ever loved. Why? to be reborn.
How can an action be so selfish, yet so masochistic?
2 springs ago, I renounced the first person I’d ever loved. Why?
As if there ever was, or ever will be any real answer.

1 springs ago, I received a Christmas present-turned-birthday present from her.
        That spring break, I broke:
                                                her heart (again)
                                                my heart (a first!)
                                                someone else’s heart, too
        That spring, I understood:
                                                why people give gifts
                                                the appeal of walking until externally lost, too
                                                new words, like drunk call and airplane ticket and jealousy
                                                the local lemma
                                                why people exfoliate

0 springs ago, I broke someone’s heart because I could not break my own.
How does one start by choosing good, and end up with only bad options?

2 springs ago, I renounced the first person I’d ever loved.
The pandemic is ending. I move through rooms she was in, and stifle my stomach.
It rains, and I rejoice.
A warm breeze curls around the darkness, and I dare to breathe again.
Pollen fills the air, and I sniffle.
My mother calls to tell me about the cherry blossoms at Balboa Lake
at least something is blooming
and oh, how soft my cheeks were as a child.
You call, and I can’t remember why you look at me that way.
and I can’t remember the last time I’ve smiled this way.