Bananas

We eat a Lotta

Bananas round here

With Reams of Teens In-and-out

Of this

House

Bananas are Yellow

On the outside

White on the inside

And you could say that

About me--

From an angle

Yet I do,

Rather,

Seem, to me,

Mottled and freckled watermelon, peach, pink and tan

Tawny

A motley mix-up

Of Asian-Anglo-Irish

My father,

A hippie

And my mother,

Who lost me

To him

When I was three

She--

Well, she

She is

Chinese and

She,

She

Has loved me

Invisibly

Through distance

Across time and space

So Yellow (dijon-honey-sunbeam) did not go

Untended

nor Undefended

And she fed me

Colors

Over summers

And holidays

And on the steamy streets

Of Taiwan

Sweet, alabaster rice balls

Soft, little moons

Full of liquid,

charcoal-sesame gold

And snowy, lacy white

Shave ice

With creamy, plum-colored red bean

And onyx grass jelly

Wriggling and

Shining

On top

Sticky zon-ze of soy-brown rice

Wrapped tight

in cooked bamboo

Leaves of

Umber and green

And smashed cucumbers of emerald

and white

so bright

I lay claim

To Asian

Having ingested these foods

For decades now

I will be Chinese!

Because ...

Because

My brothers and sisters

Yellow, Black, Red and Brown

Canary, Sable, Scarlet, Carob

And Purple, Violet, Peacock of

orientations and non

Because this boulder we have

Rolled up

This

goddamned

mountain

Of slippery and

Dangerous Slopes

Rocky Terrain

And dashed Hopes

Well,

It is

Almost at the top!

But some

Humorless lunatics

Keep trying to

Force it back down

And it will take all our efforts, Friends,

A rainbow coalition—

If you will,

To get to that top

We have cheerleaders.

If you are white, or CIS

Adopt a color

Befriend a hue!

We do this,

All of us,

For the Red White

and Blue

A deeper dream of Color

As beauty

As necessary

As complete

And Completion

Here is my secret, Friends,

I am not, actually, “White”

On the inside.

No,

I am

Like you,

Something more Translucent

And Fine

Something that Moves

And

Shines

Something

The same As

That

In You

I know this.

You know this too.

And this,

This is

The

Whole Point.