They were dancing, dancing, dancing African-Boricua music, taking them to palm tree’d places they’d never been, in Pittsburgh’s aching center, not worried about the time.

She doesn’t use ‘Chicana’ / a problematic term. /

“I just had some trouble with the luggage.”

if this poem weren’t in English / it wouldn’t have been published in the US //

we ain’t making tamales now / estamos celebrando esa masa / that wiggles & giggles //

I am small and cloud-fast / when I play with words: /

I didn’t know I was trans, she showed it to me /

Oscar Rodriguez Zapata began photographing murals of La Virgencita as early as 2012, using his iPhone to document these vibrant artworks whenever he encountered them.