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Savor
My sister insists that each tree has a different flavor sap.
My cousin and I believe her—chocolate, cherry, gum—
The possibilities, inexhaustible.
We walk through the woods behind our apartments.
We appear as small and lost or small and blind, palming trees under leaf shade,
for tacky touch.
Our brows are set as we search for promise of a hidden palate that detects
the sweet in every root that grounds us; we find credence
to an elder's words, that what they tell us must be so.
We dip our fingers into wet sap on brown bark that red ants run across.
The flavor of conjured fruit, or of bland. We can't detect what our tongues were promised.
Is there something born wrong in us?
The sticky stretches and breaks between our thumb and index fingers.