Our Lady of the Crossword by Rigoberto Gonzalez

New edition, now with French flaps!   The lesson in Aguascalientes, is that the heart’sthe center in everything—the guava, the mouththat bites it, the palm of a man’s hand wiping juiceoff another man’s chin. Call it sin, I’d call it Eden,if it hadn’t lasted, this paradise made complete whentwo widowers pushed their empty beds together.—From “Two Widowers in Aguascalientes” Our Lady of the Crossword is a sexy new chapbook from award-winning author Rigoberto González, who casts his poetic eye to such varied subjects as word puzzles, Mexican TV in the 80s, can-can dancing, and other compelling encounters that shaped the political consciousness of his cultural heritage and sexuality. This well-wrought collection gestures to González’s formal poetics and examines the complexities of a queer identity within the U.S., México and on the rich border landscape that unites the two nations. Powerful and sensory, playful and erotic, these poems dazzle on the page with González’s characteristic fir