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God Is Brown

By Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano

Brown is the color of my god’s skin.
Gentle, curvy, older than a Spanish whip.
My god abides outside of sin,
no water needed to baptize the newly born.
Brown is the color of my lover’s back.

The color of wombs, tender and soft.
Color of mothers, color of their sons.
Supple and round, violently quiet.
Color of ancestros calling us home.
The color of home.

Brown is the desert of my child’s face,
color of woman nestled in her woman’s love.
Brown is the only color I know,
dirt from which I grow.

Color once bought, traded as gold.
Color of heaven, color of pride.
Loved by the sun, abandoned by flags.
Transcendent of seasons, the walls of our souls.
The color of hope.

Color of feathers coating my serpent of night.
Hidden from the world, in my stubborn graying curls,
in the Oreo-flavored lips of a lover.

The color of god, the bowl of Chac-Mool.
Legs of a musician strumming my sighs.
Celestial stars, mundane as a smile.
Holding more meaning than X holds in sounds.

The color of love traced on a man’s thigh.
The one who is seeking, the one who is found.
Color de libertad, of borderless bodies,
of borderless writers, of borderless hope.
The color of us.
Added: Friday, June 24, 2016  /  From "Amorcito Maricon" (Kórima Press, 2014). Used with permission.
Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano
Photo by Fabian Echevarria.

Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano is the author of the poetry collections, Amorcito Maricón (Kórima Press); Santo de la Pata Alzada: Poems from the Queer/Xicano/Positive Pen (Evelyn Street Press); and, Tragic Bitches: An Experiment in Queer Xicana & Xicano Performance Poetry (Kórima Press), which he co-wrote with Adelina Anthony and Dino Foxx. Lorenzo is the editor of Queer Codex: Chile Love (allgo/Evelyn Street Press); Queer Codex: Rooted (allgo/Evelyn Street Press); and, the forthcoming Joto: An Anthology of Queer Xicano & Chicano Poetry. A member of the Macondo Writers community, his work appears in Mariposas: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry (Floricanto Press); For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Still Not Enough: Coming of Age, Coming Out, and Coming Home (Magnus Books); Queer in Aztlán: Chicano Male Recollections of Consciousness and Coming Out (Cognella);  as well as the journals, ZYZZYVA: the journal of West Coast writers and artists; and, Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought. Lorenzo is the founder of Kórima Press, a queer Chicana/o Press; and, Publisher and Executive Director of Justice Matters Press, a multiracial social and racial justice press. Please, visit his website.

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