Another sudden southern spring in a dangerous and delicate business of making us stop breathing just enough our eyelids flutter and legs twitch. The understory of dogwood foaming at the mouth, the hemorrhage of terminal myrtles, the flowering quince cracking the seal in its messy habit, littering the ground with marginalia of internal narratives, closed loops and detours—what has survived the winter’s chokehold.

         I once knew a man who spent a decade restraining patients in a psych ward. He’d come home after work, pick me up like a fistful of bergamot, root and all, and hold me, still standing, as time would speed up and slow down, as if love was a survival skill and this was the final round before elimination. His arms bruised from putting down the convulsing proletariat, the bleeding spitting combative psychotic he’d talk about and I understood little of. His grip was home for a spell, and I was his first red-rumped swallow of the season.

         Spring is a sanity thief. Someone, please staple its mugshots to telephone poles, above bloodroots and the wilding Black-Eyed Susans. Someone, please help us in the hour of its involuntary grip.