Tropical Pineapple with Umbrella
she won’t talk about her time in Cuba
or the drugs he cut into her breasts
right before the colors blurred
passing through his hand like the gray chaos
of a sharp-edged edifice
but she’ll say the stint on the steamboat casino
back to Miami made it worth it
she can’t remember the moment the chips
began to feel like fortune again
but she has enough
to take her pills with tropical pineapple with umbrella
she won’t agree
that Calzada’s paintings were of an indifferent blue
but she looks with the same longing
into the past
she kicks the shells until they’re
rubbed smooth and cracked open
and she’ll talk to a stranger
about the smaller things we use memory for
about her grandmother in Havana
the whole loaf of bread she’d make
with that one whole seed
Originally published in: PRISM