
EXCERPT: On my father's island, there were hurricanes and tuberculosis, dissidents in jail and baseball. The loudspeakers boomed: Satchel Paige pitching for the Brujo of Guayama. From the Negro Leagues he brought the gifts of Baltasar the King from a bench on the plaza he...

In this collection of poems, Mart n Espada crosses the borderlands of epiphany and blasphemy: Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, in 1941, where his Puerto Rican father realizes, at the age of eleven, that dark-skinned players are not allowed on the field; the swimming pool for guards...