Genesis

Genesis.

Child.

Brown child.

Brown child in a dusty world,

Playing soccer on cement

Because grass doesn’t grow well on landfills.

 

Genesis.

Bible birth.

Bible beginnings.

Biblical injustice.

I didn’t see a white child

Stubbing their toe on cement soccer fields.

Genesis

Too skinny for eight years old.

She had dirty feet and a shirt that sagged.

I counted lice in her hair

And let her play with mine.

Genesis

Where Adam and Eve are always cast pale.

Inaccurate and too accurate.

We were all white Adams

Sweeping in to sweep the dirt.

Too bad the best people I met were brown.

 

Genesis

Called me gringa.

Claimed me her gringa.

Gringa from North America.

Put her tiny hand in mine

And paraded me around proud.

 

Genesis

Is where white children are born

To green paradises and bright Nikes.

Houses with doors that come included

Walls that have paint from Home Depot

And water that runs.

 

Genesis

Is born of Ecuador

A green paradox split by a muddy river

Cracked Crocs versus Reeboks

Houses with floods that come inside

Walls that are different heights

And waiting for a faucet.

Genesis

Is where the water started to run

Where we are supposed to start

to understand.

Until we look at all the brown

In a world so green.

 

Genesis

Lives in a brown world

That I couldn’t understand.

 

So much dust on her feet,

So much money on mine.

 

I played with her on a seesaw

I unsettled us and she floated,

Eight years of something heavier than me

Slipping to the cement.

She giggled into finger gaps.

She only wanted to take one picture.

Didn’t even show her teeth.

I beamed, practiced.

Her smile was a whisper.

Maybe posing with a gringa felt too much like a lie.

She retreated to the fence, fearless.

The kids weren’t supposed to climb.

I watched her dangle, perilous.

I realized I wanted to let her rise.

I guess she liked to float.