On the ceiling of the examination room, a redbud reaches
across the sky—fuchsia-pink ruffled arms—& I want to ask
the ultrasound tech if all exam rooms look like this. She slides
a transducer over the mass & I ponder the possibility that
the tree is no redbud but its close cousin, Judas. This detail
seems important. The first time, when the doctor inserted
the needle, I winced—not from pain but subtraction, each
sharp click reducing me to specimen. I couldn’t see the redbud
then. Instead, on my side, I watched the needle pierce a black
stone on a screen, wondered about its origins. Everything is
of something, every rot, birthed from life, marrow of vibrant
green, bright lemon. I take refuge in etymologies, in the lore
of beginnings. Tender is from to reach, math—on the matter of
knowing, so I do tender math, try to solve for x: How much
silver would it take for this body to betray itself again?
There’s no proof to explain undoing, no elegant sequence,
but what I know is this: There are parts of me that want to be
more, different from what they are. They’re reaching for
each other across my blood—arms outstretched like redbuds—
ready to take that silver & run.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 2.
Ja’net Danielo is the author of The Song of Our Disappearing, a winner of the Paper Nautilus 2020 Debut Series Chapbook Contest. A recipient of the Fischer Prize and a Professional Artist Fellowship from the Arts Council for Long Beach, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Superstition Review, The Shore, GASHER, Mid-American Review, Radar Poetry, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere. Originally from Queens, NY, Ja’net teaches at Cerritos College and lives in Long Beach, CA with her husband and her dog.
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