smear the face with falling ash

Moises S. Lara

smear the face with falling ash
another way of blending into the earth
from the burning lands that belong to no one
my mother earth gave me humming
my mother earth shows me the outcomes
my blood speaks of the borderlands
i wear the bones of my ancestors
because he fears death i must become death
he keeps touching me thinking of little girls
little dark skinned girls
my sisters don’t know
my sisters know but don’t speak
he’s trying to rub my skin white
i coil and then recoil then i don’t exist
he keeps whispering about colonizing
about touching me deeper
that was how his ancestors raped indigenous women
he raped my mother on their wedding night
he keeps looking into my eyes
named bruised and broken women whores
my father touches me black handed
he groans and he knows how to lie
his lies make me a rotting wood
when setting myself aflame was a reminder
my father was raped by his white spaniard father
red lips of his careless racist mother
my father’s white skin has scissors (tijeras de pisca) written all over it
he keeps trying to make me into my brothers
my father likes to touch little boys
i must become death a death poet
because he fears inner revolutions
and one day he’ll kill himself
it’ll be my eyes he’ll be looking into
rattling the seeds of my skin
no longer keeping the earth hungry
smearing my body with flaming ash