<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Half-Mexican<div><br>Odd to be a half-Mexican, let me put it this way<br>I am Mexican + Mexican, then there’s the question of the half<br>To say Mexican without the half, well it means another thing<br>One could say only Mexican<br>Then think of pyramids – obsidian flaw, flame etchings, goddesses with<br>Flayed visages claw feet & skulls as belts – these are not Mexican<br>They are existences, that is to say<br>Slavery, sinew, hearts shredded sacrifices for the continuum<br>Quarks & galaxies, the cosmic milk that flows into trees<br>Then darkness<br>What is the other – yes<br>It is Mexican too, yet it is formless, it is speckled with particles<br>European pieces? To say colony or power is incorrect<br>Better to think of Kant in his tiny room<br>Shuffling in his black socks seeking out the notion of time<br>Or Einstein re-working the erroneous equation<br>Concerning the way light bends – all this has to do with<br>The half, the half-thing when you are a half-being<br>Time<br>Light<br>How they stalk you & how you beseech them<br>All this becomes your life-long project, that is<br>You are Mexican. One half Mexican the other half<br>Mexican, then the half against itself.<br><br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Juan Felipe Herrera</div><div><br></div><div>Juan Felipe Herrera is America's new Poet Laureate:</div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/books/juan-felipe-herrera-of-california-to-be-next-poet-laureate.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/books/juan-felipe-herrera-of-california-to-be-next-poet-laureate.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news</a><div><br></div></body></html>