Horchata Waiting at Home

In third grade, the teacher read us a fable as

he stood on cinder blocks our fathers couldn't

carry anymore with as sweaty as their

palms were. He

tied a string to his tongue and had the decorative

words slide down swiftly unto the opened mouths of

us grimy children holding dictionaries.

He enforced brown as the sole

available color to decorated my Mother’s Day greeting

card. Ever the rebel, I instead used green--

my mother didn’t cross murky water

ways and distilled train tracks in the guise of

a white virgin

to only dispense a hibiscus gush

from her

womb, no, she brought the entire bodega

with her. It is in the prismatic

fruit aisle where she perched and

out I came, bringing with me an

entire fruit basket to disperse amongst

those who had only had white bread

for breakfast.

I must have looked like a bean

situated on top of an expensive bar

of soap, like the Messiah on

a bed of flax prickly mementos.

This eggshell homeroom is

so obviously cracked that the yolk smears

through my bronzed skin and charred

hair from picking lilacs during recess

and being called a fairy during

English class. I asked to be excused

to go to the restroom where I wash

my face clean of the light-toned

foundation powder I was asked to wear

as I walked down the hall. Little

do they know that that the straight

A student imbibes on my

sangria bottom lip

and the entire restroom stall

glistens like a champagne

flute underneath

a radiant

polychromatic Adonis.

I always return to my

seat parched. They offer

me nectar from the breasts

of someone else’s mother and

I adamantly reject

the glass. “I have horchata

waiting for me at home,” I say.

At least that

has some hue to it.