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. Once, 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 exterior
the dirtiest condo I lived
in that ignored the freeway
on a avenue the place nobody walked. Yet
when he fell, some variety stranger
materialized out of the smog and
lifted him to his toes.
I believed then it was an accident,
the stranger a very good omen,
and raised no alarm over what
I might name now his skinny legs.
But there’s no tree to bloom
from his grave, his physique
the other of a seed. When I
can now not bear the burden, I
declutter my closet, my drawers.
Beneath a jacaranda, I go away
my deserted gadgets on the sidewalk,
and in solely hours, my errors
are absorbed by town.
Tonight, with the objects gone,
I strive to think about my regrets
with tenderness, dealing with them
the best way somebody who loves me
would possibly contact an previous scar.