to the queers, y los árboles qué nos cuidan

Imagine - all of the things the Trees have witnessed?
The horror they have seen, the desire they have felt?

Months after I revealed my queerness,
my mom confessed her own secret,
while we sat under a jacaranda Tree.
Her eyes misted as she plunged into the pool of her memory.

One day, on my abuela’s land en el congo,
Her best friend fell out of a mango Tree.
When she fell, she toppled on top of my mama.
They were both fourteen.
They laughed and wrestled for some time,
before she knew what was happening,
they both started to touch each other, and this confused her.
“Pero sentimientos asi se pasan mija,”
Yet Those Sentimientos Never Left Me.

Imagine - all of the things the Trees have witnessed?
The horrors they have seen, the desire they have felt?

While we silently sat under the jacaranda Tree,
I thought of Tío Arturo talking about the Lynching Trees in Louisiana.
I never considered what types of stories the Trees in El Salvador might tell.

Tales of resistance and whispered dreams,
Tales of Blood Soaking at the Root,
Tales of unrequited and unexplored desire.

I see before me all the people my mother could have been.

Narrated Bones
Parsed Flesh
Quivering Cells

Imagine - all of the things the Trees have witnessed?
The horrors they have seen, the desire they have felt?