Body

Sandra Cisneros writes about a sky sounding like a thousand violins

and it is the first time I think about what being a brown girl feels like

As a brown girl

My thirteen year old heart

Filled with the melodrama of adolescence and my awkward limbs growing in all the wrong places

I read these words and the pieces click

The four skinny trees that she writes about

My two arms, my two legs

For each limb I tell myself

That these limbs

The color of trees

Of the earth

Well they’re not for nothing

Because the way they feel, the way they are held and have grown

These motions have been put into beautiful words

Have been published on a page and celebrated

And I think

Maybe these four skinny trees of my own

Maybe I’ll celebrate these too