exhiBiT x - Camila Alfonzo Meza

Interracial Queen and King

by Nevelious Jordan

There’s something about the skin contrast When we make love, it’s like a color splash A flash of vibrant black and white lights that crash... Together, once our bodies connect Your pink lips grip the base of me It’s a perfect fit They lock on and pull me in like, “There’s no escaping me” It feels like this is where I was meant to be Mentally... You and I become forever young Panting heavily as we create our first daughter or son I am embraced by your tongue While I penetrate you with every inch, one by one Nine months later... There’s something about the way people stare at us when we take our child to the doctor Like a shocker They’re in panic Ready to demonstrate every racial antic Prejudice has their views going frantic They stop and stare In certain restaurants, they question why we’re there But we don’t care You and I smile, knowing some people will never understand it But they will respect us because we demand it Five years pass And there’s something about the way our little boy feels when he realizes he looks different... Not quite like everyone else in his class We explain to him the beauty of mixed culture and to never listen to the words of an ugly vulture Because in life’s jungle... He’s a white tiger with black stripes and blue eyes that will guide him through the darkest nights And so the caramel-colored boy holds his head to the highest heights

Honored, he starts educating himself on noble black men like Martin Luther King and civil rights That same pride is intensified when he’s told of his mother’s diverse European bloodline Her German, Hungarian, and Irish genes make him one of a kind His questions of identity are left behind Having grown into a studious young man, he is set to excel in Yale with an immaculate mind He is the proud legacy that will keep us alive when we die We have raised a great young man, you and I When I think about the troubles we have been through, it is not hard to remember the reason why Twenty years go by and there’s still something about the light from the sky When it hits your diamond wedding ring, I know that you are my queen and I am your king

A Louisiana Summer

by Caroline Rodrigues

The last church I set foot in burned to the ground. The metal cross on the steeple turned a hot poker-red. When it fell with a soft thud onto the church lawn it singed the fresh green and yellow grass in the charred black shape of a cross.

My brother pinched my cheeks and said it was my fault because the Devil was raging inside of me, but that couldn’t be true, because Mama and I shower our Mother Mary statue with flower blossoms and petals and say our prayers three times a day. Mother says this will wash the sin right out of me.

I keep my nail polish hidden under my pearl-white church gloves. When we pray, mama keeps her eyes closed, so I peek one eye open and admire the Harlem Red color that Anna’s mother painted on for me. She winked when she did it, saying “If your mother asks, it wasn’t me.” She understands.

When the police questioned me about the church, they asked me what my favorite color was. I thought I was tricking them by answering red, because it wasn’t my favorite color, even though I adored it on my nails. It was the first untrue answer I could think of. But they thought that liking red gave me motive.

I didn’t tell them about how Chet, the town bully and sweetheart all rolled into one, had made me come out here. He brought some of his big friends, and they kept lighting matches and putting them out by pinching them with their thumbs. Chet made me climb up to the bell tower with him, and he stuck his hand up my skirt. I didn’t like it. I was too ashamed to tell. I was screaming at him to let go of me, and his friends heard, so he stopped and turned to yell at them to shut up, and I ran. They threw fiery matches at me as I ran into the center of the town, heading for the sanctuary of my home. I told mama I had gone to the church to pray and made her promise she wouldn’t tell Papa that I snuck out again. I didn’t tell her that this time it wasn’t by choice.

They found Chet out, anyway. Turns out one of his friends was the Priest’s son and he felt so guilty that he told his father. They’re all spending time in jail. Chet wrote me a letter, telling me that he knew dark sins lived inside of him, and that he wanted me to visit so that he could cleanse his soul and gain closure. I didn’t visit. It is time for me to do my own cleansing of the bad.

Inca Stone

by Michael Waite

So what if there are monoliths where I am from That stretch as high as a man’s eyes can gaze? If God could see us now he would laugh at our pride In such obscenities, full of offices and unseen consequences. I myself have perched atop a few of these towers, Without feeling a single spark of mystery or magic. All I saw was a void, chaotic, teeming with life, Unable to make sense of history or plan for the foreboding future. And as an atom in that languid body, I hardly saw the cancer more than the businessmen a few floors below me.

There was something in the Inca stone, a jigsaw of genius and determination, That questioned the validity of human progress, The presence of a soul in my nation’s cities. Yet there was a moment in the ruins of Pisac, When I was sure that the sound of a mere wooden flute, Floating across the jagged, ancient valley below, was not music But a transmission from long ago, and yet somehow meant for me. Those gentle, timeless notes told me that despite all the wars Waged over pigment and politics, despite my inability to shake The label of “tourist,” it was insane to define myself by the body of land That birthed me, closed off from its brothers by an imaginary line.