The Sunday that thirteen-year-old Patrina heard the news about Alejandro, she was selling Kool-Aid icee…
Most people knew her for her iconic arroz con pollo, the raspy voice, the baggies of crystal, her cig dangling from mouth, chopping plátano, setting down paper-plates on the plastic table in her living room for the hungry travestis to eat.
Can it be feminist, she wondered as she spread her thighs, to want this? Can I still be on the side of liberation?
She tells me I am a loving human being the same day he tells me I am selfish and spiteful. She tells me I am brave the same day he tells me I’m a coward.
This painting, it makes me think of her. How she’d press her cheek against the small of my back and
listen to my breathing.
Did he suspect when he watched me shoot hoops in the park? Or when he told me, a million times, to pull up my baggy jeans?
She was large, looming, and the smell of plant life was thick. Had her visit to the shop been a violation?
