Lemon Trees (work in progress)

The lemon trees

Swayed in the back beyond

The fence and the road that rose up

Wide and wild, the place where

My grandfather would lose his life

But that was years away and we were

Still winding our way through the cactus

That would be Nopales on our plates tomorrow

And the pomegranates that I refuse to appreciate

The chickens clucked in the yard and scratched

Wiry and testy. She wanted us to eat but she

Still had mercy. Sometimes if I stood still enough

And I forgot to breathe I could still see back

Before the time when the house had been moved

There before the tios and tias had started their own tribes

And forward to the time that the dust would still and harden

And the only tracks would be made by the vagrants

Passing through. To when we would we had all gone

And even the trains no longer made the ground shake

Elephants passing through. And my mother and my grandmother

Would find me weeping and yell at my cousins for making me cry

But I could not say that I wept because I knew that moment

Was all that I had, all that would ever be. Before, we had not yet come

And forward, we were no more. But a child has no words