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photo allposters.com
Plees, Argimiro!
Abuela Carmita was educated
in a beige convento
where dour-faced monjas
taught her all about pudor:
a señorita had to bathe
in a refajo and always
say ave marías when washing
certain unmentionable parts.
When she married Argimiro
she retained the strictures
handed down by her diosito
and never made love in daylight
lights out under cover of long sheets
and prim long virginal payamas
ten children well conceived
amidst much groping in the darkness
freshly arrived from La Habana
she went to the supermercado
with canvas bags, precursor
to ecological concerns,
saved all cans from salsa de tomate
for planting of gajitos de malanga
all rubber bands in one large Café Bustelo
washed out and aired, soil taken
from the neighbor's garden, you did not
spend hard-earned centavos on things
you could get free, you did not do
certain unmentionable acts with your marido
that was for putas and their like in bares
and what dios joined you could not sunder,
el matrimonio was forever, a promise given
was a promise kept, through years of my abuelo's
dancing through the carnavales with a rubia
or a pelirroja she kept her vows,
except for kisses given to the television set
when Tom Jones came to sing and gyrate...
she wanted to learn inglich to become
a citizen
paid each of us a nickel
for vocabulary,
learned to say pehnseel, plees
to write out her notes
to my abuelo, plees plees
no more mujeres, no more smoking cigarrillos,
no more juiski in the evenings,
but when the cancer took him,
52 years of matrimonio took their toll,
she talked to him each night
while watching her novelas on the tele,
shared new palabras in the inglich language,
said plees plees pless
Argimiro plees
come back to your esposa.
and once again, whatever
(a sandbox poem)
everyone is writing moths spidersilk
the writing of poets from faraway
and long ago and the real ones
didn't know anymore than you
that any of it was worthwhile
they couldn't stop
words on paper papyrus the stone
of the cave was breath
...................
........
-
x
i am here on a cold two degree night
waiting for potatoes to boil, soften,
become mush, in my room with two layers
of clothing and wanting somehow
coat hat gloves inside the house
with lousy windows sliding door
icicles hanging from the corners
reading lines words the exhalations
from North Carolina or Miami, Canada
or Calcutta, my blood breath neurons linked
one giant tracery of poesy to the blood breath
neurons of one Jack or Djuana or a Kelly
or Lynette, or Ankush in his room with dog
and brother, or any of my sisterbrothers
in this dream we share, or nightmare
on some days, a common yearning
for a spray of beauty, silvery dusk,
lunar bayings of the wolf within us all
^^
?
the ibuprofen i was taking
can cause hives or facial swelling
ashtma, shock
i couldn't breathe at kitchen sink
one neverending wheeze-
a poem incomplete
a filament of death beside the small
delicate crocus, purple petals
bright against the icy window,
knocked head against the sink, the walls,
breath wouldn't come
thus sometimes with a poem
which is hanging in coocoon
and will not budge, my life did not
flash as they'll tell you, i concentrated
on the breath that wouldn't
not with a bang a whimper but a wheeze
♪♪♪♪♀♀♀&
i played the piano in a former life
malefemale i don't know
when i forget that i am i
and sit at keyboard i can play
as if my hands were those of someone
else and when i read another's lines
until my sight blurs and the breath
from other shores is mine and i am
them li po and jack and federico
ankush and neruda tara and nicolas
guillén, i tango with djuana's
compositions, watch birds with lynzie,
grieve in laurel's oldest shoe-
it's almost finished
the ache for conversation vibrates
in the piles of slush in front of my garage
some days i question every breath
each drop of menstrual blood
each poem line or child or word
some days i am content
with breath
i have no muse, not anymore,
he quit and left for warmer parts
no longer do i wake with things i need
to write or songs for my guitar
it's done
© Silvia A. Brandon-Perez 2003. All rights reserved.
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