Three Months Since — Jade Cho
My father’s last breath is still the blade
that pares and cleaves me open.
From the wound I cradle every beautiful thing:
my friends’ laughter havocking the moonless night
cricket song spilling from an unfinished building.
In my hands the pastel rind of a grapefruit
plucked from the neighbor’s tree
sour blush of its fruit plush beneath my nail’s parting.
How to live knowing all of this will one day join him in the dirt
and he will never see me beneath palm and palo verde:
my fingers long and lithe as his
ripping pith from fruit.
I slurp the good and bitter juice,
drinking enough for both of us.
Each night I’ll tell him what he’s missed:
The tree’s golden litter of leaves
the mourning doves’ daily song
rung from branches thrust against the winter sky
too blue and too bright to bear.
