the streets are slick with Fidel Castro’s ambition. Tears and blood flow through the pipes underneath and remain collected in the large clay jars planted in front of my family’s former homes. Red, white, and blue patriotism may be a reason for execution if arranged improperly on the flag. America still restricts travel to the island, where my father is unrecognizable as a citizen of the United States. The streetlights cease even to flicker above crumbling roads that were once a path through the Pearl of the Antilles. Graying yellow and teal buildings surrender themselves to relentless winds that whip up from the sugarcane fields to reveal only an overpowering flavor of salt instead. The city brings memories too painful to explore into the hearts of my abuelos; it is a reminder that the grass was greener and the ocean more inviting.…
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We do our best to escape
the shadow of the wreath.
Nothin’ but a losin’ battle.
Our hearts we dye in grey,
with fate we stain and streak.
Colors of imbalance.
Death is a lengthy day
that all will fully know.
The end will come before
or after
in the moon or through the sea.
We do our best to escape
the shadow of the wreath.
– Lance Mazmanian
Author’s Note: This poem was written with a nod toward the October 1987 song “History Will Teach Us Nothing” by Sting (aka Gordon Sumner). No real relation apart from rhythm.…
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Earlier
Monday is fine to get a new job. To start over. Each day he filled applications. Life could be worse. He had somewhere to stay, it had a big view. Twenty-third floor, sweet view of the city. The business zones and tourist gyps, pocket-sized.
Warm for September, strength in the hazy sun. Crafting statements of suitability and refreshing his resume, he gazed between multiplied windows, across rail yards of long, grey wagons, to where the city burst like an emergency through the flat land. On the twenty-third floor, among gliding gulls.
Between the towers and the city, a fortified, rectangular block intrigued him. Too squat and fierce for apartments, a slab of layered windows and fussy turrets. A prison, floating alone on bare real estate.…
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He’ll be back soon; he never takes long.
I sit on the rough wooden floor, dirt and pine needles sticking to my yellow smock as the firelight dwindles. I’m supposed to be adding wood, feeding it like Mr. John does, but the ache in my body stalls my progress. The single-room cabin is cluttered with cans, rusty animal traps and furs. Centering the room is a small wooden table that is heaped with dirty tin plates and Mr. John’s carving projects.
My rear is sticky and wet; I should clean up the blood. I should wash the dishes. Mr. John would tell me there’s no use sitting around, there’s work to be done and I’ve been abed too long. I have been watching the crack of light beneath the door – the only window to the outside we have.…
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Magic shoved his back-pack and carry-on onto the back seat of my idling Corolla, slammed the door shut, and jumped in beside me in the front—one fell swoop.
“Good to see you,” I said, and turned to face the stream of traffic passing on my side of the car. I’d stole only a quick look at Magic when he hopped in next to me. Jet-lagged face. No smile. A bit dejected maybe after having left his ancestorial homeland. But clean shaven now, and without the long hair and samurai-bun that he had when I dropped him at the airport ten days before. I was focused on the traffic out, watching to my left for an opportunity to slip into the steady parade of cars on the roadway leaving the airport terminal.…
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—november
a year ago this morning
as orange oak leaves drifted
from branch to ground
i was making love
not knowing
a year ago midday
i showered and went
to work, warmed against
crackling frost palming
the window glass
not knowing
a year ago 12:34 p.m.
i missed the call
a year ago 12:37 p.m.
inoperable brain bleed—
i barely heard through
the barking of six dogs.
dad held the phone to your mouth.
your last garbled words—
go inventory your dogs
a year ago 1:21 p.m.
i hurled my duffel into
the car i’d put 15,000
miles on that year
crying at least 8,000
drove past november
trees, lawn stippled red,
brown, fragrant black
knowing
it was the last time i
would see home this way
that when i returned
rainbow leaves would
be rotting muck
winter hanging heavy
on the garden fence
cemetery ground too frozen
to bury anything
as alive as
sorrow
– Megan Peralta…
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Memory foam never forgets. Sheets get washed, then wicked smooth by billowing backyard winds. But the indentations, the curves of a known, supine body, they never quite fade. Cleaning out Gran’s house, I was struck by the remnants of her shape in her newly vacated bed. Here she had lain for so many years, unable to make it down the stairs more than once a day, never venturing outside save for the occasional doctor’s appointment. While I was in college, she had called me once a week like clockwork, asking about grades and professors and what books I was being made to read. “Once a teacher, always a teacher,” she would echo into the phone with a throaty chuckle that still sounded like smoke despite several decades of tobacco sobriety.…
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