Tu Sabes?

by Francisco-Luis White

Yo soy Boricua, pa’que tu lo sepas.
Black, no less.
I am the rapid beating pulse ignored, only to be slain and mourned for political gain.

The other Latinx, coarse haired,
can’t quite roll my R, so-so salsa.
So Black, yes.
Mine has long been the blood of which
America drinks.

Will they wash white this body in death,
stamp it with an HRC logo cruel
in its’ implication I was ever equal?
I fear that, tu sabes?
I do.

Francisco-Luis White is an agender, Afro-Latinx poet and storyteller residing in District of Columbia. White released their first work of poetry Found Them in May 2016, a chapbook of seventeen poems dealing with transformation and departure in response to trauma along their gender/sexuality journey. White has presented at Fire & Ink: Witness — a conference for LGBTQ writers of African descent, Carolina Conference on Queer Youth, and the United States Conference on AIDS. They have been recognized by National Black Justice Coalition as an LGBTQ Emerging Leader to Watch. In 2013, they were endorsed by Jill Stein and the Massachusetts Green Party as a candidate for Boston City Council.