I keep forgetting that cherry trees don’t bloom in winter.
Sometimes our parents craft razor blades for us out of their own hearts,
and we have to continue reminding ourselves
not to put them to our wrists.
But this is what we did as young children:
put our bodies to the test by rolling them in flour
and spreading them out flat with the rolling pin. Even the witch
in Hansel and Gretel didn’t want to eat us up.
I am always astonished at the power of my own skin:
how it can hold the entire weight of my soul inside of it,
or keep the whole world out.
Once in middle school I walked in on my father
sitting on the floor in the bathroom
with his head in his hands, shaking like a leaf.
There was a pill bottle in the bathtub, half-full of water,
those tiny little capsules drifting in the current
like hollow wooden ships.