El Rio
By Evelyn Gill
Skin to skin, we turn sunward—soul-drunk, puckered on our stems. The lemon
tree stands, hammered in the courtyard-sonic-bloom. We dance! Ripe flesh,
plump. Caught in seasoned softwood stares of queer-butch-trans-transcendent
elders, leaning decades into narrow trunks. Lovechildren born to roofless walls—
hold us, hold nothing back. Acid washed dykes, we pluck juice from tang lips,
peel pant lines to flesh as real and heated as our own. Trans-men with scars waxed
green like freedom on their chests blossom from misplaced shade to the gorgeous
sheen of day. And bright nearly-boys twirl thorns to sunshine in no one’s mother’s
yellow dress. If this city is refuge, this Sunday afternoon, the lemon tree is a warm
pallet dappled light. Bosom of our birthright. Flag to our nowhereland. Where fog
burns to blue and sour fruit at last, at last, at last come home.
Evelyn Gill (she/they) is a queer gardener, birdwatcher, poet, and nurse living in northwest Washington with her spouse and dog. She has work published in Vagabond City Literary Journal and forthcoming in The Indianapolis Review and The Westchester Review.