by Sonya Wohletz
San Enrique de Velasco, Ecuador, 2016
I never prayed to the man in the tree.
But I tasted his sap once in the altitudes.
And it was stringent and perfumed—
as if tinged with aniseed and rust.
Small amounts made the blood
rush in warm gyres
and provisioned lustrous clouds.
Men and women gathered
with offerings—freshly dug potatoes,
bags of rice, fruits, blankets, corn,
live chickens and plenty of Pájaro Azul.
We danced for him on the earth’s navel,
passing cups of beer clockwise
in memory of his impassive expression
that encircled us like thorns.
For the man in the tree, the sin
was not the act, nor even the intent;
but rather in their subduction.
If I was guilty then—I was guilty of all three.
Meanwhile the hurricanes
played to the atmospheres
their refrain to tolerate more—more
of the ecstasy, more of the fracas,
more of the party for the wooden god—
all to soothe his apparent sorrow
at the ending of youth and the passage
of the rains into the next meridian.
Sonya Wohletz (she/her) is a writer whose work brings together image, history, and landscapes. Her work has appeared in Latin American Literary Review, Revolute, Roanoke Review, and others. Her first collection of poetry, One Row After/Bir Sira Sonra, was published by First Matter Press in 2022. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.