Connected by that evil eye string
My end, cracked pottery
your end, porcelain
white
Why must you look like forced bloodlines?

Why must you find pride in hair fine
Like strands thicken with sin?
Like Satan coils each kink?
like your grandmother wasn’t so black
it was her epithet?

Did La Vieja Negra love her melanin?
Did she try to wash it away en el Rio Blanco,
taking steel wool to wrinkled skin
until her chains sparkled again?

Mami, what do you think of when you look at me?
Bruised fruit of your womb,
browning,
fallen too far from the tree?