Assimilation Sonnet
By Miguel Martin Perez
I can’t believe I briefly thought it real.
Resounding cheers for black in Hamptons’ sun.
Seemed writers were a kinder bunch than most.
Just tossing sand over buried guilt:
Showered my cracking face with their false rain.
Took so long to notice myself drying.
Ashen knees and elbows cleared my eyes.
Another skin worn weak, to be renewed.
Peel–
my warmth is there, still
underneath. A break:
find a self again.
They will fucking never
overtake me.
Miguel Martin Perez (he/him) is a queer, Afro-Latino, Dominican-American poet who grew up in Harlem and the South Bronx. A recent MFA graduate from the University of California in Riverside, he currently resides in Los Angeles. His work appears or is forthcoming in Beyond Words and Riddled with Arrows.