By Angelina Leaños
Could you hear it then—the queerness
between me and my lover? Or did you gather us earlier
in the car, her nose and mine embracing unlike amigas normales?
I forget the fibers of your face when I introduced her
as my friend, if you wore the same dress
of doubt as your father. Tito, forgive my dishonesty.
Neither of us were ready that winter.
Four years later, I await our next meeting to bloom.
For now, think of me as the poinsettias
you entrusted us with that night.
While the world soils us poison,
I pray you see our purity,
deadhead our wounds and
call us both hija.
Angelina Leaños is a queer Latina and a third-year MFA poetry student at Fresno State University in California, U.S. A Ventura County Youth Poet Laureate emerita, she serves as a Poetry Out Loud coach and a Poet-Teacher, mentoring youth in poetry recitation and creative writing.