March 5, 2019

mythic

On Margie’s dining room table, a set of ikebana vessels make, despite the absence
of flora inside, something of a centerpiece. Over lunch, I imagine her,
some coming spring morning, gathering stems, fingertips gentle as pillows. I picture
a flat lay on a dampened towel and Margie, making the first, crucial placement.
Maybe it was the eastern light stretching into the back windows as we ate, or the way
the snow from two days ago has begun receding, or that my stepson, so often poised
for disappointment, received good news today, and he can, for one suspended moment,
envision a different narrative blooming in front of him, petals wider than his own palms.
However the axis pitched, Margie’s table fills with vernal promise, and the flowers -
mythic - tilt their faces skyward, taking me with them.