Roberto Carlos Garcia, Poem for Uncle Jaimé

[glaciator.livejournal.com]

His big, soft hands had gripped the naked backsides
of the pueblo’s many married women.
Jaimé Garcia beguiled with blue green eyes—
he was a stone cold fucking machine
& a well mannered mama’s boy too.
The viejas called him gentleman & bandito,
he eased up & down the lane, giving kids candy money,
booze to beggars, he even drank Sambuca with the cops.
Jaimé crept on your wife as she sat in the shade
drinking limonáda, & you, away, working.
Pueblo husbands half-suspected the infidelities;
they met & played dominoes to study the facts.
It became a club of sorts, each husband pretended:
No, not my wife, passed off fake smiles like hyenas—
the doubt buoyant as a motherfucker.
Then Piel Canela came to town. Piel Canela
because she was burnt like sticky cinnamon,
hair & eyes black like shadows in midnight’s bedroom.
Her teeth flashed wicked. Jaimé passed her gate one day,
saw her bent over, gathering dry palm for a fogata—
to keep mosquitoes away. He spoke slick. She finished
his sentences. The fall was quick & the toucans stopped their songs,
the river ceased its dance, & the viejas prayed
with agua florida soaked rosary beads, & Jaimé barely made it
out of Piel Canela’s bed before her husband came home.
& imagine him, his wife naked in bed, asleep—not yet evening.
( The feathery hiss of gossip carried him off to the domino club, to rum. )