The guava grove appears after the rain.
The fruit is not bright, not tropical. It is ripe and split open on the ground, its pink flesh drinking in the smell of crushed leaves, wet soil and wood burning somewhere far off.
Someone has been here. Roots torn from the ground, resin on the hands, smoke hanging between the trees. The palo santo does not purify. It marks the perimeter.
The guava begins as fruit and ends as an apparition.
