A man, bare chested, sits in a doorway
watching some trash being
lightly sautéed
in stagnant street-water.
It’s eleven AM, and three young men
argue about the outcome
of a dominoes game.
They look out from the shade
of a crumbling colonial town house
as our bus splashes to a halt
and even more people board
and the bus driver calls
‘Dale! Vamos! Dale!’
and there’s an elbow in my back
and a foot where my foot
used to be
Like malangas con mojo
people stew in their own juices
Hands slip and slide on
overhead bars
someone opens a window
and the bus fills with the fumes
of antique cars.
La Revolucion Continua!
reads the paint on the wall
but the Cubans don’t seem to
take note any more;
the teenagers on the bus
talk wide-eyed about
Ronaldo and Messi
over their cellphone reggaetón
and a man takes courage from a carton of rum
to ask a blonde woman
where you are from?
This socialist paradise
where tourists pay a premium
to honk their horns from
‘fantasy’ cars
and to stay in luxury hotels
with hot running water
and eat in air-conditioned restaurants
where the dress code is a strict
‘sunburnt with sandals’
and where the face of the venerated Saint
is now used to sell shirts and berets
and taxi drivers, like mosquitos
chase white skin through the streets
with an outstretched hand
insistent that their supply
must meet your demand,
so they can take home in a day
what a doctor takes in a week
and fill their wife’s shelves
with ornamental things
and wear shiny belts
with imperialist flags
and in the end it didn’t take
an exploding cigar,
the revolution sits slumped in the door
like the man with no shirt
who has a free education
but no lust for work.
La Revolucion Continua!
reads the paint on the wall
but the Cubans don’t seem to
see any more,
The leader, once glorious,
will abandon his state,
and the capitalist vultures
are circling the gates.
Habana Cuba, April 2013
