February Tulips
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.
