Alexa Neulisa Luciano Ruiz, 28, Tao Baja, Puerto Rico, February 24 - Subhaga Crystal Bacon

They didn’t kill a man in a skirt. They killed Alexa.

Because it is allowed, they taunted her always

and everywhere. In the photograph that went viral

online in Puerto Rico,

after she was falsely accused

of spying on a woman

in the bathroom of McDonalds,

she looks like a nun, the white towel on her head

like a wimple, her black coat.

But there’s her purse,

the mirror that was her safety to see who might be

behind her.

The photo allowed them to track her down

and kill her in a park in Toa Baja.

Hey, can you give me some of that ass,

We are going to shoot you up.

Let’s spin the tires on this motherf-----.

You bet I am going to go and shoot him.

In the headlights’ glare, ten shots, laughter

on the video they shared on social media

because it is allowed.

She was a person unafraid

of humanity, humble, noble. She was also hungry,

wandering, lost. Maybe unstable. Who would not be,

given what is allowed, when your life is unvalued.

When they cannot claim it as a hate crime without

a motive. No one has come to claim her body.

---

Subhaga Crystal Bacon the author of two volumes of poetry, Blue Hunger, 2020 from Methow Press, and Elegy with a Glass of Whisky, BOA Editions, 2004. A cis-gender, Queer identified woman, she lives, writes, and teaches on the east slope of the North Cascade Mountains, in Twisp, WA.