mango

I hate you most when I remember the day
we laid on the soccer field hands melted together
warm salted skin still sticky
from the bleeding mango juice
when you flayed the fruit,
skin shaved off and
filleted out flesh for me.

I curse you when you said you liked me
And then handed me the knife and
showed me how to stab and slice
down to the pith.

I will rain down fire and ashes to burn
Your blood-juicy body
already empty of the sticky warm water
fed to hungry mother earth.
Empty table sits with my mangoes
waiting for me to feel mango lips
screaming from their orange damp depths.

A Race

What is the color of the sky?
I say “Not blue but gray
With purple and white added up high
today.”

Make me a man in a minute and a half
Call me a monkey
Try to make me just chaff
But I’m too black for you to see

I am black
My mother and sister are white
Two more brothers are Latino
And Dad is frying latkes tonight

When someone calls you dirty
What do you say?
Tuck it tight inside
And walk away.

White mother, try to make me
understand.
White hand in black,
cross the street, hold hands.

Would she lie?
My boy don't cry.
You are mine, toe to nose
and our skin color is just clothes.

Take them off and
we're all the same.
The colors people use
are just a game.

You say I'm white
But look at my skin in the light.
Is it white like paper or clouds?
No it is freckled and really light brown.

Except where you're burnt.
There you are pink
And tan brown where it doesn't hurt.
With a little yellow or orange I think.

So what color are you?
Not black like the cat
But I am brown too,
Just much much darker than you.

In a race someone
wins on a long straight track.
In a maze all are lost until they come
together to the center, coming back.

What is the color of the sky?
I say “No more clouds up high.
Sunset pink, Mom.
Sort of like you.”

Return of the Blog Entry

Did she forget about the blog? No. All creative efforts have been focused on a creative writing class and how to survive until the summer. But the summer has now smothered us all and the entries will continue with a vengeance unknown as of yet.