You met me after work with a quart
of cherries, an avocado & baguette, red
wine in a plastic orange juice bottle. Flowers,
mainly carnations, were woven through my bike
basket with a small paper banner that read: Happy
Birthday. “I know,” you said. “But it’s worth celebrating
more than once.” We walked to the park, eating
our cherries and thanking everyone who wished us
a happy birthday along the way. I’m sure that evening
was cooler than I remember. You sliced the avocado
and served it on chunks of bread and I saved the pit. “I’ll
plant a tree!” I said, remembering all my sister’s attempts
pits supported by tooth picks in glasses of water
and left on window sills, waiting for that first
sprout & precious amounts of sunlight and hope. Of course,
I could be remembering that wrong, too. I worry
sometimes that I’ve mixed these days up; added sunshine,
a breeze on my cheeks, your mouth, my arms behind my head
my body stretched long. You sat beside me, never
moving your hand from its place on my thigh just beneath
my skirt. I made a wish, blowing on a blade of grass instead
of a candle, an awkward note that could have been
a honk, or a cry, but will always be music as we one by
one listed all our favourite days that came before this one.
