I Love Latinas

By Kiara Ramírez

The phrase falls every so 

often from loose lips 

on pale faces,

“I love Latinas.”

The words are uttered again, 

chanted, screamed. 

A lie every man

repeats when they see

how we carry our culture

on our hips. 

It is the music they cannot dance to, 

the food they cannot cook, 

the skin they can’t ever touch.

It is our tone they say 

they love, how our voices raise 

when we get mad, but how can you love 

a language you cannot understand? 

Our words are just sounds, our pleas

for freedom stuck in 

liner and gloss. 

When we laugh, they shush

us and duck; when we

speak, they make note

of our mother tongue 

molding together with foreign talk.

We are sun and sand, 

islands and borders.

But to them, we are

the sweat that waters their 

lawn, a category of porn, a sharp

tongue and attitude, our mothers 

who stayed with men 

who never deserved 

them. An exotic gift 

you bought last summer 

in Puerto Rico.