A poem after the paintings by Gronk
La Tormenta sips a double
Espresso at the Lost Souls
Café
Alone on the long, sagging
couch,
Listening to the young people
Chatter about art and sex and
dogs.
La Tormenta is, of course,
young
And rich and beautiful and
Could sit at a fancier café
Surrounded by old men with
Old money, old lies, old
desires.
But she does not know who she
is,
So La Tormenta continues to
sit
In this café off of Spring
Street down
An alley where the new
loft-dwellers
Come and go, speaking of
Michelangelo.
La Tormenta ponders her identity—
Even her name’s origin is
hidden
In fog and memories of East
L.A.
Memories in black and white,
not
The Technicolor of Saint
Minnelli.
La Tormenta knows a few
things:
She has a secret lover named
Isela Boat, one of the
infamous
Boat sisters of La Puente,
the ones
Who killed their husbands
with love.
La Tormenta smooths her
black,
Silk dress; she tugs at the
ends of
Her long, elbow-length gloves
as
She assumes that her adoring
fans are
Trying not to disturb her
dark solitude.
And La Tormenta doubts that
she will ever
Know if her soul is as
beautiful as she feels.
[“La Tormenta at the Lost
Souls Café” is featured in the forthcoming Crossing
the Border: Collected Poems (Pact Press) which will be released on
November 17, 2017.]
No comments:
Post a Comment