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THE GREAT SUSPIRO
In black cape, top hat, he choked
words into his throat, a web of deceit,
though a magician he wasn't.
Actually, my parents worked
with him during volunteer red
Sundays when they picked
potatoes from muddy fields,
and Suspiro looked up at the sky
and said he'd could read
the bottoms of clouds like hands,
and he knew that everyone's
days in Cuba were counted,
and he sighed. He sighed all
the time, which is how he got
his nickname. Suspiro. Sigh.
My father tagged "The Great"
because he said when Suspiro
spoke, people stopped work
to listen. Until the day, he fell
over furrowed earth, clutching
his breast, and out of his mouth
came a scream that set doves
aflutter in the distant cane fields.
Suspiro, of the bone-white
predictions. How my parents
would leave their country
never to come back. Me, I grow
silent when I feel his hands
wrap around my throat, a mouse
caught in a trap, its neck broken
a pulse quickening, then letting go.
FUCKED UP SONATA
In my dream, my father removes his head
and places it on a platter, one of those silver
trays from the surgery room. His mouth
twisted into a knot of blasphemy; he tries
to speak, winks at me until an eyeball pops
out and rolls under my bed. In the humidity
of my fear, a bestial flower rips through coil
springs, mattress padding, bedsheets, grabs
hold of my legs. Devours me slowly until
there's nothing left but my shadow, fetal
like in its acceptance of this other-worldliness,
the way a memory fever chokes my tender heart.
Poem
© Virgil Suarez 2004. All rights reserved.
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Virgil
Suarez was born in Havana, Cuba and now lives and works in
Florida. He loves Miami and hangs there every chance he gets.
He's filled over twenty books with his prose and poetry. His
most recent publications include, Infinite Refuge, Palm
Crows, Banyan, and Guide to the Blue Tongue. The
University of Pittsburg Press will publish 90 Miles: Selected
and New Poems, in the winter of 2005. He has co-edited four
anthologies (University of Iowa Press): American Diaspora,
Like Thunder, Vespers, and Red, White, and Blue. His
poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry 2004. He is
currently writing a new novel and restoring a '55 Chevrolet.
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Portrait
of Virgil Suarez © Henry Denander 2004. All rights reserved.
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