Look Familiar

Buenos dias!

I look familiar, what do you know?

You think I am Hispanic? I thought so!

Where are you from?

You ask me

Try again, you might find

that Spanish blood

runs through my vein

four century ago!

When fleeing Castilla

La Vieja or la Nueva

for sure I don’t know

close to Madrid or Lisbon

rememeber the Inquisition?

Maria the English lady

from Gibraltar

that’s why I am here

Ask me again where am I from?

The sandy dunes of the Sahara

and the Berber in me, shows through

my skin is dark, my eyes green

its not at all what it might seem

Again you try

I might respond to you

Buon Giorno! In Italian

or better yet

Sbah L C-Her! In Arabic

Traces of what is left of my sojourn

from Tripoli were I was born

sweet memories of no return.

I keep in my

heart and share with you

This swerved infusion of old and new

my past and present

somehow in review

Proud to enunciate

to be a Sephardic Jew