Bad Hair/Pelo Malo Betty Trevino

Bad Hair/Pelo Malo

She dug in that comb like a tiller through a corn field;
Her smile over the curlers; part grimace of exertion, part satisfied smirk.
This was my punishment-the crime was having been born of her.
The mere suspicion of being mixed is a public shame and a private grief.
Self-loathing is an inheritance too.

Happy, little-girl-curls, an innocent remainder of a long forgotten Celtic conquest
from which came my father’s blond hair, green eyes, lousy skin and pug-Irish nose.
But to her, embarrassing proof, uncovering black bones in white graves.
Blond curls are born to catch favor and black ones to catch beatings.
Reality can’t compete against perception.

She said that in the Caribbean they’d ask “Y tu abuela donde esta?”
Is she in my head? Are you digging her hate out of me? Or planting it deeper?
Why is no one arrested for putting base poisons on the head of a child?
In this case untruth is spelled lye.
“They’ll think you’re black” she accused.
“I’ll know you’re evil” I thought.
Cancer cured her hair issues, but didn’t relieve her panic at mine.
That cancer cured lots of issues.