“Having been broken can be beautiful”—
A thought as I gaze at the neighbor’s
Weeping Cherry, as it poses as a bonsai—
Dresses as a bonsai—aspires to be—and

Maybe I don’t know what a bonsai looks
like, but their Weeping Cherry is curved,
crooked, once broken. Its miniature in my
yard grows strictly skyward into its own

weeping. In the store, a stranger walks
too close to me. As if they grasp at
intimacy. Or they are numb to proximity.
Or I am invisible. I keep forgetting that’s a

possibility. Space in a city is different. Chain
link does not keep out a gaze. Nor do my
windows. I used to think black out curtains
were for the sun. No, they are for Mike next

door, who can’t smoke in his home so he
smokes in the camper in his backyard—
lives in the camper in his backyard. Being
broken can be beautiful. Beauty can be

painful to watch. When the shades of slow
growth become too stark, I draw the black
out curtains, inhale smoke, gaze at a tree,
weep, graze an elbow in the check out

lane. Does my gaze on the once broken
Weeping Cherry make it mine: its brokenness
and its beauty too? I come from the hills,
where trees fall and no one hears them—

as if, invisible all along.