The pink blossom trees were everywhere
after she named them—Hong Kong orchids.
In the public garden, they are the first flowers
to open. They bloom like an aria. The rose plots
are just woodchips, slashed stems, and thorns.
We once lived on an island where she could
barely breathe, because Norway maple trees
cast their pollen like ticker tape and we wanted
to keep the cats. What I couldn’t learn from her:
how to tell Mandarin from Cantonese, blend
chilis into perfect fish sauce, and proclaim
how we lived and loved each other. How easy it is
for the tree to find its color. Lies and omissions
diminished me. Still, I lose: I cannot even recall
our common silences. The years have transposed
into any year. It’s my first year in Ohio. She lives
on a foggy peninsula and I hear she’s smoking
again. I see the spring as a closing throat.
Shelley Wong is the author of As She Appears (YesYes Books, 2022), winner of the 2019 Pamet River Prize, and the chapbook RARE BIRDS (Diode Editions, 2017). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, and The New Republic. She is a 2019-2021 Affiliate Artist at Headlands Center for the Arts and has received a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from MacDowell, Kundiman, and Vermont Studio Center. She lives in San Francisco.
Photo by Swallowtail Garden Seeds on Foter.com / CC BY-NC