Heredities — Poetry by Jose Hernandez Diaz

A man in a Selena Quintanilla shirt walked along the shore. It started to rain. The rain soaked his hat. The man in a Selena Quintanilla shirt took off his hat and threw it into the ocean.

When the man in a Selena Quintanilla shirt was a boy, he’d ride the bus to the beach in the summer with his tío. His tío taught him how to surf and draw. His tío was a surfer and a painter.

Now, the man watched the sunset on the west coast of southern California. His tío eventually became a teacher for his community. The man in a Selena Quintanilla shirt became a muralist and a poet.

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Jose Hernandez Diaz is a NEA Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He teaches creative writing online and lives in Southeast Los Angeles.