What is Unknown is Not Absent by Penelope Perez

Bronze Prize of the 2023 Gavilan College Annual Poetry Contest

"I sold tamales every day when I was six years old."

"You did?"

a story that slips from his lips hold it close, before it leaves is a rare treasure you may never know when it will appear again

"your abuelita had a parrot he was a nasty thing, always yelling at me in spanish"

resilience blossomed in natural beauty and the torogoz flew across the sky while the land weeped

"do you know about the salvadoran civil war? of what papa fled when he came to america as a young teen? did you know the soldiers who fought were often children?"

of the horrors he faced i do not know of why he did not want to embrace the richness of his culture and instead simply be like all the other perfect american fathers bury your past, adopt idealized images was something i did not fathom

i cannot speak the native tongue perfectly of certain traditions i do not know suffering and beauty alike are still locked away from my mind

"you are not hispanic enough" this is untrue "what is unknown is not absent" i tell them

the torogoz is learning to sing embroider the sky, let me hear your voice! you learn to sing, toro-goz, toro-goz! our generations will learn to heal and for now i will share what I know el salvador is beautiful