[trace]

by Angela Peñaredondo

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fire ants carry a loaf of living—a portrait emerges as survival circuit 
our grandfather’s father’s father could not forge what was not permitted 

after so much rupture this portrait is only an imprint 


after rusted blades transfigure to fine alluvial dust

site of reclamation even before articulation of futurity from a single photograph 
of our infancy

before occupation of adulthood this story is real
this story is real


this resistance story about young bodies   double helix & 
time travel on the sea               watch us come back          as orbs floating 

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Angela Peñaredondo is a queer Filipinx, interdisciplinary writer and educator. Peñaredondo is the author of nature felt but never apprehended (Noemi Press), All Things Lose Thousands of Times (Inlandia Institute, Winner of the Hillary Gravendyk Regional Book Prize) and Maroon (Jamii Publications). Their work has appeared in The Academy of American Poets, Pleiades, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southern Humanities Review and elsewhere. They've received fellowships and awards from Hedgebrook, Kundiman, Macondo, TinHouse, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown among others. They are Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at California State University San Bernardino. Currently, Peñaredondo lives in Los Angeles with their partner and many cramped plants. Follow them on @domaindenarwhal or www.angelapenaredondo.com