It is not yet spring. The urge rises from within,
as it always has, to paint my skin in cherry-
blossom shadows on pure ivory powder.
Black lines and hard edges of serrated leaf
serve as contrast, serve as a fence to keep
it all in. I cannot feel alive in winter, I wither
in summer's heat. Let me be a dancer in the
bright autumn and a maiden in flowering
spring, where the sparrows nest in peony
branches, where the petals fall to matcha-
scented winds, where gardens are arranged,
seeming endless, until the end.
