BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

F your upper class commas
and Valencia suits sewn
with elephant tusk and Sierra Leone’s
children, UNICEF babies, Korea and India,
Tijuana and China on their knees
polishing the shoes of Mr.America and his son
F your wooden desks
gold plated pencils, hyperboles,
polysyndetons, and sixteen years
of celebrating European culture
waxing your father’s
Alfa Romeo and country estate
drinking his aged liquor
French silks, Indian spices, and
South American gold
digging nothing up but severed hands
and indigenous corpses beneath the footprints
of our brave Puritan ancestors
F you and your daddy
the crack of his whip, the mast and his sails
his doctrines, compacts, and compromises
his trail of tears, trailer parks, and reservations-
Mr.America’s public zoo
his gangs and his allies
throwing flowers and clips at their victims
Latasha Harlins, Tyler Clementi,
Shaima Alawadi, Treyvon Martin,
Manuel Angel Diaz, Marcelo Lucero,
and Sikh’s
Forget your Renaissance roots
and Ivy League textbooks
your children are at your feet
–Hosanna Rubio
class of 2014
from “The Divine Feminine”