the el andar prize for literary excellence

THE PAULA AWARD: SECOND PLACE
Cecilia (a bolero) by René Peña-Govea

Cecilia (a bolero)
Renesita (a vals)
are you, Cecilia, a bolero?
am i a Mexican waltz?
I can taste the chocolate
and milk of our skin
The caramel involved
in this whirlwind anonymous ethnicity
What are we, dear sister?
Mexicans? Americans? Chicanas? Mexican-Caucasian Americans?
We are some of everything, some of nothing.
like paints spilled together.
A name hidden deep in the Appalachian Mountains,
or a rancho in México.
A name that sopa cannot surface,
that the Texas heat stifles.
This honeysuckle sweetness of a name
is hollow.
the sharp shatters of
self-doubt cannot
be hidden in the relentlessness
of Grandma’s habaneros.
We cannot look at our grandma
who is the color of the
inside of an almond
nor our grandma
who is the outside of the almonds
she used to pick to help the family
and conjure up a name.
Our naughahyde dreams
of completely lucid identities
are impossible.
We are not one circle
that can be bubbled in
nor are we an “other”
We are C.C. and Ne ne
Cecilia and René
Our caffeinated hopes of
acceptance
are thirsty and curious.
We are what mitosis chose us to be.
Camote and sweet potatoes with marshmallows.
We slip laughingly through the lines of
racial prejudice.

The oregano and epazote of our existence
tinging the pale palatability of others.
The placebo of warm tamales and dark cousins
seeps into our pores
which are parched and salty
waiting for an answer.
The answer that will never come.
That will never spill like wine
on a starry night
out of someone’s mouth.
An answer that will
not even come over pomegranates and gossip
on a Mexican Christmas Eve.

© 2000 René Peña-Govea and El Andar Magazine