The cottonwood never remembers
where its seeds will fall.
They drift, careless as promises,
weightless as the breath between I love you
and I’m leaving.

Today, the sky is full of them—
tiny white ghosts pirouetting in the sun,
threading through the cracks
in old conversations,
settling like snow
on the ruins of us.

Once, I believed love had roots,
deep as the cottonwood’s thirsty reach
into river mud,
but now I see
how it scatters,
a thousand soft departures
spun from a single aching branch.

The wind insists
on carrying them forward,
even as they dissolve
against the warmth of my skin,
and I open my palms
to nothing.