February Tulips

I bought these tulips in February

because they matched the sky

the day you left, that slight orange

fading, folding into cloud layers,

another sunset that we look at

from different angles, places

and now, with you gone,

I wonder as I trim the stems

if there’s a way to arrange them

to forget these thoughts of her

whose daughter sometimes stands

here, wanting a flower for her room

I move petal upon petal to hide

images of how you, perhaps,

you looked at her pregnant body

felt her skin, drank her milk

bought her tulips to look at

while you were there, at sea

and she was left with a baby

your support, and flowers that maybe

reminded her of the sunset

on a day you kissed, left,

and yet I suppose there is no use

in rearranging flowers to forget

the sadness of an always leaving is

all I seem to know it seems

a series of passings, of sunsets

of sunrises, told through flowers

and here I am, perhaps another

version of another woman

who held her pregnant self

and trimmed tulips to see

something more than transience

something as present as this

this deep beauty in February

these orange tulips against baby

There’s a certain intrigue in the contrast of holding bright flowers against a grey New England winter sky. The stark grey, so enclosing, and, to me, so oddly comforting, juxtaposed to what seems a color so foreign, that it all becomes so arresting. Fourteen years ago I bought yellow daffodils in February, and I still haven’t forgotten how their yellow changed the course of my late winter. And now these: these orange tulips under a February sky. They spoke of her, of departure, of the cyclical nature of life, of love, of a flower. I saw in these the sadness of feeling a repetition, just another version of someone’s pregnant girlfriend. I saw every kiss they must have had, every flower he must have given her in the midst of winter, the way he told her he loved her, the way her must have felt her growing belly before saying another goodbye. Though, simultaneously, though I saw such a pattern, distilled things into the mere simplicity of category, of night and day, and sunrise and sunset, and love lost and gained, I too saw each intricacy. I realized that I had never seen this day, this particular light, that I’ve never held these flowers, that I’ve never seen my body like this, that I have never loved a him or he a me, and we have never loved each other on this day, under this light, with these flowers against my pregnant skin.