To celebrate National Poetry Month, Serena over at Savvy Verse & Wit has asked fellow bloggers to post a poem or write something about poetry - she has the schedule over on her site. And since I love poetry and have been posting poems off and on throughout the month, I decided to snag a date on her schedule. Here's the poem I chose to share with you all:
White Owned for Guillermo Gomez-Peña
(from chicana falsa)
by Michele Serros
Pink mama tugs at pink baby.
"Don't wander off,"
she warns.
I sympathize
like any hopeful mother to be.
"You never know,"
pink mama says,
"people today are crazy
just crazy,
...'specially the Spanish,"
"You mean people
from Spain?"
I ask.
"No,
Spanish people
...from Mexico.
They snatch white babies
drag 'em across the border
for pornography,
slave labor,
human sacrifice."
Unemployment lines are long,
rent is months overdue
outspoken counter service
means immediate
termination.
So I stay silent
wrap her dry-cleaned clothes
in airtight plastic,
watch pink mama and child walk away,
holding the knot in my stomach
and wonder if white boyfriend
will give me beige baby
everyone thinks I stole.
.
