On the shoulder of I-84’s
overpass as eastbound
enters Portland,
an almond tree
lets down its fruit.
Her petals,
pink the same as preschoolers
color the sky
and white as the paper
beneath the wax,
tremble in the violence
of Internationals
and Peterbilts,
the same violence
that grabs fistfuls
of my sweater
in intervals.
Jack under, jack up,
lug nuts off after a fight
and this freeway tumbles
in a storm of those flowers
cast off in April-sun,
I am down a layer and sweaty.
Steel wire arcs where sidewall was
and rubber gralloch marks its death,
those eight seconds of braking
behind, those eleven tree species
lined as a windbreak.
I am lucky to have stopped
beneath this almond.
It is the only tree in bloom
along this stretch.
Its softness has lessened the day.
Her olfactory embrace deadens
that of axle grease and sunrot.
I am not afraid of those trucks
passing a wrench-span away.
This is enough, for now.
