To the Lady Who Called Me Racist
though our skin hums the same hymn,
though our shoulders buckle from the weight of chains
our ancestors carried, shackled
and shipped like Wenge to forget their roots
in the Americas, Lady, fuck you. Lady,
to hate you is to hate myself.
Or part of myself. Like Whitman
I contain multitudes.
I contain Spanish beaches and the endless roll of white sand on sea.
I contain San Juan, the history
of seventeen siblings and my abuelita
combing her fingers through the snapping spine of chicken feathers,
never imagining that one day she might mix her hips
on an army man from the Caribbean.
No Lady, I will love you as I've been taught to love,
deep and forbidden; my great-grandmother
snuck in her home a white man pretending
to be a salesman so that he might hold her
against him, seek the inside
of her uterine spaces and pillow talk
of wedding bands the law would not allow. Oh Lady,
later, I will snake my hand down my boyfriend's jeans
to feel the creamy heat of his inner thigh and it will be then
that I will know you,
raw and aching like a rusted link cast
around my neck, wrapping
until the length clasps, tightening.
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