Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is the author of the full-length poetry collection Flashes & Verses… Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press, the poetry chapbook So Many Flowers, So Little Time from Red Mare Press. Between the Spine is a collection of erotic love poems published with Picture Show Press and La Belle Ajar, a collection of cento poems inspired by Sylvia Plath’s 1963 novel, to be published in 2020 by CLASH Books. His poetry has been featured in Cultural Weekly, Frontier Poetry, Yes, Poetry, 24Hr Neon Magazine, Red Wolf Editions, poetic diversity, The Wild Word, The Fem, Pussy Magic Press, Tiferet Journal, Rigorous, Palette Poetry, Rogue Agent Journal, Tin Lunchbox Review, Rhythm & Bones Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, Neon Mariposa Magazine, The Yellow Chair Review and Lunch Ticket’s Special Issue: Celebrating 20 Years of Antioch University Los Angeles MFA in Creative Writing. Adrian is an LA Poet who has a BA from the University of Texas at San Antonio and he is also a graduate of the MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and their cat Woody Gold.
Poets Resist
Edited by Michael Carter
August 16, 2019
Adrian Ernesto Cepeda
A Donde Esta mi Mama y Papa?
“You’ve got to tell me, brave captain, why are the wicked so strong? How do the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves his porchlight on?”
— Tom Waits
I picture ICE soldiers
mocking all the crying
niños y niñas waiting
for their Moms and Dad’s
to come home, but you
had them picked up,
rounded up, herded like
animals in the land of Dixie.
Only cater to those Confederate
states with no mind who
burn crosses now they
love burning effigies
by weaponizing my race
the aim… anyone who has
a tanner skin than the Aryan
incels seething baby powder
white bloods who fear make
believe invasions, infestations,
caravans coming…
that never arrive. Still
even on this side
of the border, in Mississippi,
you love showing your ilk
how to keep the darker shades
afraid of so many different Crayola
colors hiding con miedo. Do you
even understand
when niños y niñas cry
for their Mami y Papi?
What they mean? Do
you need to have
their copper cries whitewashed
in translation to bleach
away your conscience?
Why must you separate
our familias? Why focus
on us, the ones who speak
a marron lengua? I can
see you snicker while
laughing always stepping on
our earth tones while
nose up admiring cloud
like colors, wishing
to whiteout America.
This must be why you
desire to “fix” the census,
we don’t count, the only
families that matter
are the ones with $$$
green is the only color
you see. Anyone castaño
or darker ruins the pale canvas
your vanilla American
wet dream. So, you cover
silk naturally blanketing
your sneers never wanting
to hear our burnt umber cries —
forgetting all those niños
y niñas, in your eggshell
fragile mind — if you can’t
see shiny seashell colors —
they’re not your ivory children.
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.