Cuba, 2001

President Obama is visiting Cuba. To mark the occasion I am posting a poem from my first collection of poetry, Subterranean Radio Songs (2005). I wrote this poem during and after a stay in Havana. You could call it a non-fiction poem.

 

Romeo y Julieta

1.

To fish

in this post-Soviet bloc, present-Americano blockade

of a Special Period

in the twilight of a Habana Vieja teeming

with Habaneros toting handlines

is no leisure activity.

It is economic necessity.

I swim a near dark as close as communal bath water.

Dodge the lines of jiniterismo visible by the whites

of their smiles.

(No, novia. Gracias, I say;

I don’t want to be your pony.)

Moskovitchs grind, bicycles glide

past—accompany a cluster of musicians

wheezing Buena Vista Social Club tunes

to tempt the tourists.

(Lo siento, amigo, I shrug smile;

I don’t wish to salsa your hermana.)

A crowd gathers.

Police down arms to hammer a horseshoe of humidity

around a whippet of a man, body bowed

like one of those fibreglass poles sportsmen wield

in the Gulf Stream. Drinking mojitos,

thinking themselves Ernest.

The crowd contracts,

confirms that Communism is a centipede.

Once-upon-a-time comrades

compressed

into a collective, many-legged desire

for consumer goods—computers, cellulars,

wide screen TVs, air conditioners, flash cars,

fresh food.

2.

Before my arrival

my Mexican familiaris intimated all Castro had to offer

was contraband tobacco

and Cuban fellatio.

More question than information, as I recall.

But I contended I desired only baseball.

Saw myself behind the batter’s cage

at Estadio Latinamericano

sipping espresso from a paper thimble,

listening to the bleacher calls.

The eternal search for the elusive

curve ball.

3.

Strike two. Ball three.

The count is full.

The crowd aroused.

The pitch waist high

and hard—

Begging to be hit.

4.

I came to Cuba carting a cardboard suitcase

and a straw hat.

I am highly flammable,

but buy a carton of Romeo y Julieta.

My passport has expired,

but I possess greenbacks.

I think myself alone,

but have a suede-headed chaperone:

My kid sister.

Together, we have ridden the Yucatan

in second-class bus carriages.

Both of us in remission

from births, deaths

and marriages.

Habana Vieja is our last stop in the Americas.

South of Cuba is suburbia—

mortgages, marriage to my West Indies,

a long suffering Baptist bride,

and children I am yet to name.

Call them Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria.

Call me Columbus. Better yet, Cortez.

5.

The promise of capitalism thrashes about

in Bahia de la Habana,

fights for freedom,

threatens to baptise the fisherman.

But the fish cannot outlast the centipede.

As each fisherman is bent to breaking

he is relieved by fresh hands

until, rotation by rotation,

the prize is reeled in

—gaffed, netted—

left to drown

on the warm concrete

in the late evening

of Castro’s Cuba.

A panting

yellow-fin tuna

with a torso as thick

as a man’s thigh.

['Following the many elbows of the Yarra']

Following the many elbows of the Yarra,
taking the racing line,
retracing the route to the Toorak school that did not teach,
            but bequeathed a tie,
perhaps,
I was blinded by the nostalgia of a life half lived,
perhaps,
and did not see the vixen spirit herself across the road
just in time to feel the bite of my tyres.
There was no time to brake.
My foot was half on, half off, the accelerator when
I felt the shock of her through my steering wheel,
             heard her cry.
I could have kept driving into the night—
the road was dead, the streets asleep—
but could not forget that time when,
coming down Brown Mountain in a Toyota,
I killed a goanna and kept going,
lacked the decency to drag the carcass off the road,
and how I carried that sin in my glove compartment still.
             I stopped.
Stepped out into the early morning,
the air cold enough to turn breathe to steam,
and stood by the taillights of my old 318,
watched the fox lie in the glare of a street light,
half a world away from her natural home,
and felt something close to pity.
Waited until a fleeting shadow—at first an eclipse—
grew smaller, darker, then manifested as a wedge-tailed eagle
that landed on the double-white line without a sound,
wing tips sweeping the leaves from the blue-black road.
The eagle was telling me she was watching me
watch the fox, so, now I knew I had no choice.
             I had to act.
I left my car behind,
purring its soft red cloud of carcinogens,
and heard my boots strike the bitumen
as I drew close enough to see my animus
reflected in her animal eye.
The vixen was breathing—more like panting—
and unable to move more than her head.
Without thinking,
I reached down to touch her burnt orange fur,
but she had seen enough of my kind
on her backyard travels
and, throwing her head up, caught my thumb
             in the trap of her razor teeth
What happened next surprised us all.
Without speaking, I took off my old school tie
to bind my bleeding hand,
walked back to the car, popped the boot
and came back to the fox with the wheel jack
swinging low from my good hand,
then let that hand rise and fall
beneath the shadow of the street light,
and listened to the sound of steel splintering bone
while the eagle—with a sweep of mighty wings—
lifted herself from the road to seek solace in the sky.

This poem was recently published by Australian Book Review for their Poem of the Week podcast. It is taken from my upcoming poetry collection, Year of the Wasp, which will be published by Hunter Publishers.

You can hear the poem at ABR here.