Rochelle Jewel Shapiro
Cherry Blossoms
When I was six months pregnant with my first,
my father cleared his phlegmy throat. He looked
straight ahead, not at me. From a deep place
in his barrel chest, he said, quietly,
“You are carrying me,” and died
six weeks before my daughter was born.
I did not believe what he believed, but knowing his belief
stole the joy from my new motherhood and weighted
my heart as milk my breasts. I talked myself
through my days. Life was only a to-do list.
My face felt stiff. My words sounded far away.
The sky was never blue.
My son, my daughter, are now grown with children
of their own, but on this cold, gray spring day,
far from that time, that place, I am lying
on the spongy grass beneath the cherry trees,
my daughter, my son, on either side of me,
the cherry blossoms raining down
like soft snowflakes of pink and white
shaken from the heavens just for us.
My son, my daughter, their small hands
reach for them, their cheeks puff
to blow wind from their lips, as if petals
are bubbles whose path they can vary.
