The year following my grandfather’s death, my grandmother took our Christmas
tree      from the curb my father had placed it on          and dragged it 
onto the spot         where no grass had ever grown          in our front yard. She paid 
the neighbor ten dollars to turn the soil  mix in water  fold the ground like dense 
cake batter   pick out the lumps            of stone.      She had our tree planted 
not really knowing if it could hold the weight of our Christmas       cut straight and bare 
across the bottom            needles dropping      without roots     but the tree held its posture         
and she could pluck       the stubborn         silver tinsel    wound      around its branches.
Monica Montelongo Flores is an assistant professor of Multiethnic American Literature at California State University--Stanislaus. She writes mostly poetry and essays, often creating hybrid forms through memoir.
header image: Annie Spratt via unsplash