PUES, ENTONCES ERES SPICARESQUE...

if your father hitch hiked to Brazil in a banana truck
if your mother's father first put on shoes at thirteen
if they lived above a department store in Buenos Aires

if your mother helmed a Singer on the Starship Costura
if your father bolted out the back door of a fabrica
if after thirty years they still can't finesse difference
between beard, beer, and bear.

if your mother has been dying since you were five
if she is Asthmatic, prone to Depression, and Diabetic
if she invokes virgins to obliterate her Fibromyalga
and they come but hold vigil over the Wonderbread instead

if you have a rich Aunt nobody likes because she acts like a popsicle
if you're the only cabron that can call your sister a bitch
if you've been to the federal building to stand in the immigration outfield
if you're the fiat of a splinter tribe that birthed your parents their papers

if your mother took courses at LaGuardia and her class babysat
if your father circled the campus in any variation of a Pontiac
if your aunt worked at a Chinese restaurant in Stuttgart
and your uncle painted airplane hangers without a harness

if your aunt runs the plastic surgery racket in Miami
if your uncle shuffles in Clarks and has a deliberate moustache
if their children ask for asados when they come home with their children
the specter of a cocker-spaniel that loved Steak Ums and was called Spunky.

No, not Spunky but Espunky.