CHERRY BLOSSOMS

In D.C., the cherry blossoms

float like small balloons

tied at the wrist to

the wooden hands of dying

trees.  Here, where the

white skin of halls and

monuments throws the sun

about like children, the

cherry blossoms still pink

and white after an early

April snow, clutter the

radial roads of this

anachronistic city.

The tourists, wide-hipped

septuagenarians from Tallahassee

and St. Paul, gather around

the trees with their

goose-necked cameras.

They don’t know that the

trees, like you, can’t be

trusted, and that while

the balloons they hold will

eventually deflate and fall

into district gutters, the

wooden hands are perennially open

reaching up to this east coast sun

pulling

                pulling

                                pulling

down a sky they’ll say

they never promised.