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.
Hands smacked domino tables in bitterness: Kill Jaimé Garcia!
Piel Canela’s husband said no, that would be too easy,
& pulled a slight hammer from his linen blazer,
a hammer like a child’s toy made of wood & metal,
with this, he said, I’ll get that bastard. At night’s sharp edge
they found Jaimé stumbling drunk along the lane.
They beat him, took off his clothes, beat him some more,
& Piel Canela’s husband came up from behind, held the tiny hammer
high up like a testament, & brought it down hard like a judgment
behind Jaimé Garcia’s ear. The cry, my God, the cry.
After the convalescence, the wives, like roadside flowers, waited
& Piel Canela, so bold she met him at the gate as nurses walked him in.
She searched his eyes for the blue green wildness. Drool
dripped from his lips.

Comments

[bloodrebel333.livejournal.com]

Wow, very impressive.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's cold. Wow.