Chicana Falsa and other stories of death, identity and Oxnard (Riverhead Press, 1998)

Michele Serros was born and raised sixty miles north of Los Angeles in Oxnard, California. As a young girl, she was greatly inspired by the writers Louise Fiotzhugh, S.E. Hinton, and Judy Blume. She is a big fan of wet burritos, German Expressionist art, and The X-Files. This is a poem from her book .

White Owned

Pink mama tugs at pink baby.
"Don't wander off,"
she warns.
I sympathize
like any hopeful mother to be.

"You never know,"
pink mama says,
"people today are crazy
just crazy,
.... 'specially the Spanish."

"You mean people
from Spain?"
I ask.

"No,
Spanish people
.... from Mexico.
They snatch white babies
drag 'em across the border
for pornography,
slave labor,
human sacrifice."

Unemployment lines are long,
rent is months overdue
outspoken counter service
means immediate
termination.

So I stay silent
wrap her dry-cleaned clothes
in airtight plastic,
watch pink mama and child walk away,
holding the knot in my stomach
and wonder if white boyfriend
will give me beige baby
everyone thinks I stole.