“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” ~ Anais Nin

Cherry trees bloom the Saturday morning
he suggests we go to the indoor pistol range
and shoot his .45. It is early April,
warm and mellow,

so I don’t wear a sweater
for the first time that spring.
We gather the gear, load up the Explorer.
Starving, our stomachs land us
in a disheveled diner. Our waitress
has a screwed-in scowl.

On the way we stop at the country club.
I am read the twelve-year old epitaph,
still hanging above the drooping tennis courts.
“We laid in the shade there,” he says.
“He was the pro here.” His smile
is blooming, enthusiastic, telling little. I fall for him,
again.

At the Bucks range we pull on
protective covering for our ears and eyes.
One of my early bullets finds a bull’s eye,
before my nerves go.
His shots emerge on the cardboard like buds on the tree limbs, little clusters.
Until the accidental discharge.
That sends us packing.

The blooms of Cherry trees look ghostly pink
under the New Hope moon.
I am wishing
my rounds hadn’t accidentally gone off.
A jealous misfire. How they mushroomed inside you,
let out old unfelt grief like so much blood.
I cried that I killed some part of that day.
And sent out a prayer, to the tree gods,
for another rebirth.

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