Farmers Market

Her breasts were watermelons
and he loved fruits
Farmers Market
six o’clock
He was searching for anything in store
She was sticking blueberry poses
Leaving kiwi footprints
And tossing her cilantro hair for others to envy

He stared
Measured her Caribbean curves
And passively said
“I want that one”
He took 10 pounds of her dignity
wrapped her up in a plastic bag and
dragged her to his place

She didn’t want to leave
The market place was her home
This place where she would harvest
for her children and their children
This place where the rain seemed to
rejuvenate the most intimate parts of her roots
Where the sun would shine just enough

But he was hungry
So he stole fruits
He sliced her eggplant figure right in half
Ignored the sweet ginger that erupted from her insides
Strawberries started to leak
from her thighs all the way down to her feet.
His fingers rubbed the hairless peach in between her legs,
He busted her cherry hoping to make as much profit off her as he could
He hated the color of her skin yet he caressed it
He hated her people and he hated her

This is Christopher Columbus’ big discovery
I was there I heard the cries of my ancestors
Zocorro! Ausilio! Someone help us please!
As he twisted the virgin grapes that lied on their chests
As he took the two lumpy apples at the base of her back
And baked them into pies to sell to slave owners
That would later be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner

But you tell me, what is there to celebrate?
When he chopped her up
And left thick wounds that would be passed down
into her children’s umbilical cords

How would she explain this to me
To the next generation of girls who were growing up behind her hut?
How would she tell us that she couldn’t breast-feed
because every time she looked down
she could only see his face?

But …he forgot she had seeds
That no matter how much he stepped on her crops
the more she would blossom
That no matter how much he wished her harvest
would rot underground the more she would flourish
He forgot she had mustard seeds,
That would grow tall with pride
from underneath the wounds he had left behind.