Adrian Ernesto Cepeda | A Donde Esta mi Mama y Papa? | Poets Resist

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is the author of the full-length poetry collection Flashes & Verses… Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press, the poetry chapbook So Many Flowers, So Little Time from Red Mare Press. Between the Spine is a collection of erotic love poems published with Picture Show Press and La Belle Ajar, a collection of cento poems inspired by Sylvia Plath’s 1963 novel, to be published in 2020 by CLASH Books. His poetry has been featured in Cultural Weekly, Frontier Poetry, Yes, Poetry, 24Hr Neon Magazine, Red Wolf Editions, poetic diversity, The Wild Word, The Fem, Pussy Magic Press, Tiferet Journal, Rigorous, Palette Poetry, Rogue Agent Journal, Tin Lunchbox Review, Rhythm & Bones Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, Neon Mariposa Magazine, The Yellow Chair Review and Lunch Ticket’s Special Issue: Celebrating 20 Years of Antioch University Los Angeles MFA in Creative Writing. Adrian is an LA Poet who has a BA from the University of Texas at San Antonio and he is also a graduate of the MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and their cat Woody Gold.

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Also by Adrian Ernesto Cepeda: Flashes & Verses… Becoming Attractions Between the Spine So Many Flowers, So Little Time

Poets Resist
Edited by Michael Carter
August 16, 2019

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda

A Donde Esta mi Mama y Papa?

“You’ve got to tell me, brave captain, why are the wicked so strong? How do the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves his porchlight on?”

— Tom Waits

I picture ICE soldiers mocking all the crying niños y niñas waiting for their Moms and Dad’s to come home, but you had them picked up, rounded up, herded like animals in the land of Dixie. Only cater to those Confederate states with no mind who burn crosses now they love burning effigies by weaponizing my race the aim… anyone who has a tanner skin than the Aryan incels seething baby powder white bloods who fear make believe invasions, infestations, caravans coming… that never arrive. Still even on this side of the border, in Mississippi, you love showing your ilk how to keep the darker shades afraid of so many different Crayola colors hiding con miedo. Do you even understand when niños y niñas cry for their Mami y Papi? What they mean? Do you need to have their copper cries whitewashed in translation to bleach away your conscience? Why must you separate our familias? Why focus on us, the ones who speak a marron lengua? I can see you snicker while laughing always stepping on our earth tones while nose up admiring cloud like colors, wishing to whiteout America. This must be why you desire to “fix” the census, we don’t count, the only families that matter are the ones with $$$ green is the only color you see. Anyone castaño or darker ruins the pale canvas your vanilla American wet dream. So, you cover silk naturally blanketing your sneers never wanting to hear our burnt umber cries — forgetting all those niños y niñas, in your eggshell fragile mind — if you can’t see shiny seashell colors — they’re not your ivory children.