scorched earth smells like tortillas on the comal/ the Mayan girl down the street with the baby on her hip/ feeding the officer who shot her father/ Abuelita’s hands/ flipping hands/ back and forth back and forth back and forth/ to cool me down/
there is something that happens/ in a body that has been abused/ so many times it can hardly/ remember what sweet corn/ smells like. something that rots/ where the right hand meets/ the rising flesh. I think it’s/ the avatar state, how the rage/ rises up in my body/ turns blindness into bounty.
my Tia used to tell my parents/ that child is special./ she (redacted)/ has a powerful spirit/ so when the fire/ boils up inside her (redacted) body/ her (redacted) eyes fill with a darkness/ that flesh cannot contain/ I think it is a blessing/ they call it vasovagal syncope/ the trigger that is carried/ in my genetic code.
my Father’s body/ slumped over the backseat/ of our four wheel drive/ the way the pain/ of the door slamming on legs/ made him lose his consciousness/ right in front of me/ and I bawled and bawled/ in the backseat/ because I thought him dead./ or/ my own body/ at the foot of a gargantuan tree/ after falling from a great height/ the ambulance came/ and I emptied my stomach/ on top of the scorched earth/ far, far, father away from freedom.
they say it’s in the eyes/ how they change colors/ chameleon black/ signal anger as blood courses/ through my varicose veins/ split hairs how they/ spark fear in the face of/ eminent danger./ how many of my ancestors needed/ to be abused and attacked/ tortured and tormented/ raped and ridiculed/ in order to alter my DNA?
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