Winter Tan by Andrea Chow

last week,

I needed to go to the grocery store.

Sprouts,

because I have money.

I’m bougie like that.

I stood in my driveway

fumbled with my keys

as my neighbor walked past.

she asked me,

how are you so tan?

it’s winter.

I thought to myself,

I am tan because

when amber drips down a tree

it hardens dark.

I am tan because

when you crack open the sunburned shell of the coconut

sweet water spills out

and you sink your teeth into its meat

grateful for the jungle and its saccharine sustenance.

I am tan because

when you walk along the coast

your ankles apply mascara and eyeliner to themselves

and when you get home,

the tar and sand and dirt seems to stick to you.

I am tan because

when the Spaniards slaughtered me,

they covered me in a layer of rock,

and my ancestors cried tears over my grave,

my roots took hold in the soil,

and my spines stretched towards the Mexico sun,

yellow flowers, pink fruit blooming in the desert,

and underneath my fingernails were little brown clumps I was buried under.

I am tan because

the wood planks of the ship from China to Nicaragua

were constructed from the tree that bends tall

not despite the wind but because of it

not despite its roots but because of it

not despite my ancestry but because of it.

I don’t know,

I tell her.

I was probably left out in the sun,

or something.