The summer sun beats down upon me
darkening my skin.
revealing, as it sears my light complexion,
my mixed heritage.
stripping me from the world of whites
where I now live.

they claim, this is a modern world.
but they're just gringos on vacation.
spending soles on cute trinkets.
sweet memories, of our rich exotic land.
Incas chewing coca leaves in the Andes.
iconic symbols woven painstakingly
into a llama wool hat.
silver crosses from regional mines.
pisco sours - papas, so many kinds of papas.
all for you,
on your ascension to Machu Picchu.
our culture has been consumed by you.
what joy I've found
in lentejas y arroz.
the bright white rice, sheltered alongside
the aji and steaming beans.
greenish gray morsels
garnished with an egg.
a perfect meal
unaware,
that you had chicken.
without worry
of a dinner lamp snuffed out by a bang.
nor the pieces of your cousin in the mail.
a ransom note, an ear,
a last reminder that he had lived.
the wires
the barbed f****** wires.
stretching cross the city.
woven into every cement fixture.
roofs glistening at night.
the glass shards secured by concrete.
the dogs in waiting.
my family laughing.
as tio Lucho tells a joke

but with a madre gringa
and a ticket north.
I was removed.
speaking with aid
from speech pathologists.
bending my tongue into a canoe.
renouncing erres,
erre con erre carril.
turned to "the's" and "t's".
kissing close friends with hand shakes.
as winter winds blew in each year.
white clouds enveloping my sun.
consuming the rich dark reds that I wore,
until left with only my mothers skin.
white and fair,
and despite the dark black hair
I could walk among you,
each step in your light
was one further from home.
quiero conocer mas de quechua.
I prompted mi papa.
now my father calls me mike.
but now as the summer sun
calls upon my fathers hide.
the gringo veils removed.
like a freckle on my mothers
irish skin.
I shine
a spic