An arts magazine at the University of Pennsylvania
Cherry Blossom Birth | In Her Shadows
Cherry Blossom Birth
Emily Maiorano
I know I said she had dark hair
But I saw strawberry blonde
At least when the sun was highest
At night
in the inky mist of mountains
It became curdled red
Clots and clots
“Like pink petals
that melt when you touch them.”
She said.
What are those trees called again?
We laugh at the ancestors’
small cups of knowledge
They have Little Dipper vocabulary
With unbroken wisdom
Like children
She said my blood didn’t have a fever like hers
Mine was cold and foamy
Full of salmon swimming downstream
A blue heat warding off the magic hour
But blue blood could never be used as a torch
Some are good with numbers
She was good with colors
“Fall in love again.”
She said.
Your love is like the Japanese tree in the spring
That only lasts a short time
Then turns green like the others
So you can’t recognize it
for what it was anymore
That scares you
But don’t you remember
when you trained your eye
To look for the chalk marks in the branches
To know it was still there
Which meant
It would come back?
Not every moon has to be painful
Pink or blue
I knew when the moon
Made the sea swell up
It must be a boy!
Although in starlight
The water is black
So I should’ve known
Pink or blue
We waited for the color of the blood to tell us
And it turned red
You ask why no one picks the blossom
Because when I did
it lasted a moment
Just as she had warned.
Equilibria 