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Patricia Gomes
The Classification of Hibiscus
In my Cuba,
the rum has never stopped flowing.
Sheer indulgence causes the fire to spill
from my lips
and run down between my breasts
to puddle in my navel.
In my Cuba,
it is only the Sierra Maestra that separates
boy from man.
A man, this man,
we'll call him Che so you will recognize him.
comes to suck the pooled rum out
with a tiny white straw.
In another lifetime, the straw was wedded
to a grade-school juice box.
Che's hair is over-long
and coarse.
I curse his hair,
plunge both hands into it and make a wish
for parakeets to swoop down
and unshackle the would-be bankers,
the taxi-driving day traders with pretend laptops.
Only when he's finished
do our dark eyes meet.
He is crying.
It is then that I notice
the gathering of children.
It is then I remember
that Cuba is sterile.
One Man's Claret
You would,
if you could
get away with it.
If you thought for one second
that you wouldn't
get arrested
or ostracized
at four-fork restaurants. You would.
You would jam a stick
up
us.
Jam the stick up
between our legs
as far as it could go.
With your face painted team colors,
you'd enthusiastically wave us
in the sky
so God could see
the rib had been put to good use.
Or maybe
you would freeze us,
a frozen sweet treat
to let melt in the sun
when the bills come due, when
air becomes a bargaining tool..
No problem, you'd tell each other.
There's plenty more in the box.
That purple smear
near the signpost
was your mother. You remember
Of course you do
the heady wine of the womb,
the degradation
of your head-first slide into mortar. Your first
failure — and shame became sin.
Purple
is always the last
eaten.
You do not fool us.
We watch you in threes,
the back-slapping, the anesthetized glaze
when we converge with our pens
and menses
prepared to storm the doctrine.
Skewered. The crows
pluck our eye sockets clean.
A swaying placard reads:
This one was a real bitch!
You do not fool us.
Author of three chapbooks, and creator of the Octologue, an eight-line, syllabic form of poetry, Ms. Gomes performs throughout the New England area. In 2006, she was awarded Second Place in the Poets Out of Hiding Contest sponsored by The Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River, Massachusetts. Recent publications include Literary Potpourri, The MAG (Muse Apprentice Guild), Poetry Super Highway, Unlikely Stories, Scorched Earth, Animus, and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's Temper Review. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Adagio Verse Quarterly, and an interviewer for Lily — An Online Literary Review. Her latest chapbook, A Scheduled Departure, can be found at Lily Press in electronic format. www.patriciagomes.com.
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