Native Gums
By Amber Josfin Pineda
You are forever embedded in these sturdy roots
That stretch from the intimate crevices
Of our still home
To the gaudy earth across our still seas.
Laced and harnessed in indigen love,
You become to me
A familiar stranger
In the sizzling sting of
Violent red pavement.
When you speak,
It is within your lines
And the breaths between
That the ube purple of your rice-stained lips
Bleed vermillion mischief
And a dash of scarlet death.
You become vulnerable,
Almost attainable,
In the heat of your words.
Like the cascading moonlight
That oozes into your native gums,
You are the hands that forever
Chase and shape
The borders of our islands
And redefine
The nights of our summers.
Within this pocket of reality and time,
In this indefinite heaven you’ve created
With the chapped skin of your lips,
You’ve come to embrace me with
The words bound in your hair.
I need not speak
Looking at your falling teeth.
Amber Josfin Pineda is a junior at the Academy of Our Lady of Guam with an interest in reading nonfiction pieces and pet sitting. When she’s not listening to music, you can catch her watching biopics in her free time.
