Quiet Child

From the window seat, I drew a jacaranda tree—broken

crayons across the backs of overdue bills, dark lavender

hearts hung on buoyant stretches of branch—when Mom

dropped the phone, its curled cord limp in midflight spiral.

Sobs reassembled the bedrock of her cheekbones, tears

like watered roots streaming down the crease of her chin

on their way to the deep hollow at the bottom of her neck.

I sketched her cries into a crooked trunk, lovers’ initials:

pale blue squiggles knotting themselves within the brown

timber of our front yard. The blooms started to look more

like heavy bells, purpled anguish gathering on the ground

as she fell weeping, grief drowning out the thin dial tone.

The wind picked up, but the jacaranda tree stood still.