Hora de feliz

(This is the epigraph, a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a work, usually a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme.)

“u look … different [u

pale-ass American Grrll®]

...where u from originally?”

(This is an annotation of the epigraph.)

The central conceit here is that that eyebrows this thick and noses this wide ain’t usually pinched outta mounds of Seamstress-to-Secretary-to-Space-Race-American-Creamer-flavored clay.

like mutts

like mestizas

like American Girls

like me

(This, now, is the main work--the grand gesture that purports to stand alone, pretends to be ignorant of the extremely intentional, calculated framing that was just provided to prime you to know exactly what you now know to maximize the effect of the poem on you.)

Intoxicated on the tincture* of your peaches

and cream, it’s what you find in your bed

when you touch your own

spectrum of skin to wake

up. Every way but straight, you begin

noticing in last night’s sexy* photos how much

you look like your mom in black &* white. Only

when the veneers of porcelain* and burnt street*

corn shades are equalized can you feel Her breasts

--the weight of them pluming

Mamí-lipids up against the stars

of your hollow bra, illuminating what

are now and always* were--

Hers.

But it’s only in vertigo, removed of color

where you become the same. When all you* never*

loved* Her* for is all you are the Heiress to. Cocking*

the self upside-down like an Hourglass out

of time*, then reset, full, again: She assembles. You turn

the Ustedes* around, hoisting blood from your toes up the caves

of Her septum-- your temples*-- a joint boil. Monotone

allows no flush; off-kilter still*, you will not darken

rouge in the kiln. You, having been pressed from each

-peach*, cannot assimilate to pear

-plum*:

a clay that came*

under the fire

of daring to be

anything but W*

(-hite)

in America.

There is none

no flame hot enough to harden you. To console,

the photo offers your mamá’s almond

eyes, seeing for you, witnessing

you witness her, how she was

not then and never will be

wrong*--exactly no more than you.

(This is a footnote, which provides additional information you may find useful, to not just one referent in the work, but to the insinuated constellation of asterisks throughout.)

*, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, *, &*: The “rule of tincture” is one of the cornerstones of the tradition of heraldry (think coats of arms, rank, stature, pedigree--all that). It stipulates that color, or “colour” as would be a more appropriate orthographic rendering to suit the vernacular of heraldic practitioners, “should not be put on colour.” Delinquent in her legal status, it appears mom was nothing but law-abiding when it came to this royal “colour-on-colour taboo;” she placed herself on top of whiteness, perhaps in the aspiration of genealogical ascendancy (or perhaps in a Stockholm-esque worship of the Colonizer?), spawning off a face I can’t recognize screwed onto the bodywide blemish of a washed-out epidermis, who together as a single being lay in bed too late in the mornings after happy hours, swiping at pictures, trying to cast blame.