(no subject)
I was asked to write about the desert. I see the saguaros and the nopales on the screen and I think of Mexico, of a place where I briefly belonged by association. The food and the accent stuck to my clothes like when you cook in your kitchen all the time and your home starts developing an odor that you no longer smell.
A long time ago, I sat by the lonely saguaros in a Mexican town whose name I can’t remember.
The poet tells me to write about plants that I don’t feel connected to except when I think of their connection to the tacos and the agua frescas and the mole I had from a packet that made my stomach hurt but that I can taste on my tongue when I close my eyes and sit still.
Write about the saguaros, they say. Write about the ocotillos that I’ve never seen, whose pictures remind me of someone’s hair standing up, of a dying shrub. Write about atun that I haven’t yet tasted.
Write about a land that I feel is a little bit mine by association, because it has bred people I’ve loved,
Even if they end up eating nopales without me.