Pray
to the lesser saints if you want someone to hear you
someone
who died to learn the code,
those
mortals who turned a mountain or two
into
Facebook, who moved a miracle once, or won
a
kingdom for their television hero by betting on the wrong God.
This
morning the big silent screen
told
me when I was standing in line for a bagel
that
Fidel died. And here in America, we’ve chosen
Trump,
so all the windows on Fifth Avenue dressed the angels
like
sex workers. Fidel is dead but nothing is ever
a
done deal. Last night in Jackson Heights
we
sang Guantanamera
not
knowing who was dying. We did know
Abuela
never wanted to end here—92 in New York City
outlived
and living out the past. Cuba widowed
her
first. She cursed him before I was born: Fidel rhymes with hell
but
I came to this old church to learn “forgive us our trespasses
as
we forgive those who trespass against us” and carol the bell
some
say music can chase away the devil’s ire.
Mother
Theresa is looking straight at me. I light a candle at her chest
two
dollars in the box and I set a stick on fire,
touch
the wick for Fidel because I can only expect as much treason
as
I am prepared to give the beard of his majesty.
Blow
it out. Does each tooth stuck into an island tree in a certain season
became
a bullet shot into the open mouth of that country?
When
my people were scattered and I was planted here—a burning stick—
each
tooth stuck into my song, swollen and sore like a hungry
lit
wreck, the one that schools you: the white rose prayer and the dog-bite curse.
Drivers
and maids and wealth, that’s what the guerillas took first
when
they came down from the mountains. And Christmas, of course,
then
food. The breasts of Mother Theresa cast in metal, the desire
never
indicated under that wrinkled wimple. I lit a candle
for
Fidel and now a blind woman is lighting her own off my fire.
Mother
Theresa prays in heavy metal with a Kung-Fu grip,
if
only her eyes were not so tight
which
is to say, if only the magical animals
did
not always have to be blind.
the
host sticks in my mouth, to blind the taste buds. If I listened
long
with Jesus to the white noise prayerful hush
in
this kingdom still recovering from the shock of Trump.
Will
the metropolis mourn Fidel or savor his death? The last time I tasted
that
cardboard was at a funeral. God bless you, son
and
Merry Christmas,
and
it’s only two days after Thanksgiving, so he should have wished us
a
Merry-Christmas-Shopping because we’re on Fifth and it hasn’t iced
over
yet. It’s not over yet, this practice of standing on their backs,
of
churches making promises they cannot keep. Fidel Castro, for better
or
for worse, depending on which saint’s app you hack
and
what’s written on that faint piece of holy cardboard here
in
my mouth: when we are but bone dust and done, Fidel and I,
our
particles will be mixed in the wind, and we are all miracles.
