How You Created A Chicano Poet

Growing up Chicano
watching Captain Kangaroo,
going to the drive-in movies to see Lash LaRue,

going to the all Mexican school,
speaking Spanish in the schoolyard,
forced to speak English in the schoolroom,

going back to the farm on the schoolbus,
white kids picking on me,
kicking me as I walked down the aisle---

I’d kick those little bastards back
and bite them if they weren’t quick enough.
I haven’t changed much in the intervening years!