by TS Hidalgo
Artwork by Autumn Griego
At the Malecón it is dawn all day,
or that’s how I remember that time,
the beach of that summer.
Glasnost far from where I lived,
calypso in front of where I dwelled
(2,000 miles to the southeast,
beyond where earthquakes come from):
delirious stamp exchange
behind toxic structure in opaque:
money lenders definitively beyond the temple.
Factories,
like ants, like gourmets,
detest ropa vieja*:
brothels and troubadours
five minutes from the Caribbean,
which is not the heart of the Caribbean:
Magritte said it already, This is not a pipe,
it’s the drawing of a pipe,
and I can accept that the simile allows for cracks.
Even there the cookies have letters written on them (some).
*Trans. Cuban stewed beef dish.