Plum Blossoms

On some nights,
you can’t help 
the looks you give,
vein tight, eyes dark
with undertow—

and some words throw
a lasso around your middle,
threaten to cut you in half.

Sometimes,
you grab your keys—
call out,
just going for milk!
You grip the steering wheel.
Years of banked steam.

All you know is to drive.

And then a rain of plum blossoms
falls across your windshield;

And the world slows down.

And nothing matters
in the way you thought it did.
And that lamppost looks
like a man in a hat.
And an old woman is walking
a little dog ensconced 
in a tartan vest.
And your kids are sleeping.
And your husband is a good man.
And there is a full moon above you.
A sun that will rise.
And you pull over, 
climb out,
run your palm across
the warm hood of your car,
pluck a handful of plum blossoms
and put them in your pocket.

SARA RITTER

Sara Ritter was an emerging poet and a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest. A recent graduate of Pacific University, she completed an MFA in Poetry (2024). She has been published in the Poets of the Coast Anthology (2023) and served as a competition judge for the Writer’s Circle Desert Poets.