Love Letter in the Snowy Birch Tree
This article was originally published in Foreign Literary - Issue 4, Fall 2020
Birdless boughs of that ghostly birch, licked with the thinnest icing of snow
have caught your letter, tied with red curling ribbon. My hands are warmed here,
from this side of the glass, from this mug of steeped Genmaicha tea.
A breeze stirs the ribbon, as if trying to blow away the reminder of you,
the persistent ear worm of your irreverent joie de vivre hootings, the thought
of that one flip of cow-lick we claimed as a curl in that straight stick hair. You inherited that
but not from me.
Your laugh still hangs in this kitchen, smeared across this window’s ledge. You stood there
Between me and the window the night before you left again, your new life, new country
Beckoning even as you were ranting about The Last Jedi, described how you were learning
To speak Parseltongue. Why not? you said. How hard could it be? you said, polyglot that you are.
My eyes rested once again on your left eyelashes, how they creep downward over your blue like robin
egg eyes. Just like your father’s lashes curve to veil the iris. I rocked you in the darkness, watched
those eyes close, sang lullabies. I couldn’t bring myself to imagine you falling from the sky. Who
would foretell such a fall? I changed the lyrics...
if the bough breaks, the cradle won’t fall,
cause all of the angels, will come to your call.
You left a short note on the back of the Christmas wrap, the red string still secured by tape,
discarded nonetheless. You were in a rush, I suppose, the Uber waited, the airport far.
I meant to save that penned missive too, place it with the others by my bedside, with my other favorite
things. Somehow, it got away from me and landed there, just beyond my touch
Scattered where a fairy spirit or a devious crow tied those pilfered tendrils
In that snow kissed birch tree, bowing as they do now to the wind.