Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight
January 2022 Poet: Ae Hee Lee
Bougainvillea :: Papelillos
Alejandra says she doesn’t believe in discovery,
only in encounters, and that she wants to introduce me
to a bougainvillea bush down the street. She leads us
past white window gates from colonial times
that look like ornate birdcages, and I don’t ask out loud
whether a single dust particle has remained
in place since I left Trujillo years ago. She points, smiling,
Look, the branches of papelillos are over there—hugging
the sky. They are the color of our mornings here, of light
shivering in fog, busy with petals that are not petals but
leaves holding invisible flowers. We don’t stand too close;
we don’t interrupt the rustle of paper chalices
above our heads. We wait, under the latticed shade, stay
still to understand what it means to sway.
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