SAKURA
I’ll start up slow.
My thoughts under cover of snow grasping
at consciousness and vocal chords I don’t possess.
I stand here. Rooted.
Stretching my bud-finger growth to catch sunlight.
My low branches turn to the skies.
My roots dig deep.
My sap will rise.
It’s winter still.
I stand here, at the edge of the wood, let foxes make their home in the hollow of my back, invite migrating sparrows to nest in my shoulders and in the hole by my ankles, hedgehogs sleep. Near sunset, the boy crunches the hill to speak to me once more. He walks as if bees had told him their secret dance, all jaggedy footsteps and eyes bent out of shape. He rubs his hands on my bark, face pressed in knots and grooves, resting forehead to lips across the grain. He flings sentence after sentence at me, in dew-spattered words, biting like African red ants, hands to fists, knuckles scraping.
I can’t talk back and his story hangs in the air between us.