Fidel is the best example, look here.
Of what, a Russian icon?
No, look up, follow the light, there.
Him? He looks nothing like Castro, he’s dumpy.
Don’t you see him reaching for the book but staring
into the shadow, in the next room at someone?
That wisp of beard on his round face, his
thin fringe of hair over the collar?
He wanted to be Che, he wore the beret,
shouted the slogans, imagined the barricades.
Che died young, though, he never outlived
his own icon.
And Castro has?
No, not Fidel, Fidel has lived so long just
Wait. Che is too vain to wear glasses,
but he still reaches while he stares at his
model.
She’s what? Not young.
Well dressed. Well off if her blaze is
platinum and not white gold.
She seems absorbed, but she knows he looks,
is complicit in the portrait he imagines.
How can you tell?
I know the look, I can tell.
His fingers must be arid by now, the spine
almost supple again with his oil.
She left.
Where?
Out the back.
He opened the book, but he still looks toward
the shadow. Watch his nose, he sniffs.
For her?
No, for the long-sleeping page to wake.
Is that why he comes?
Leiden would not have had old books like these,
they were still too expensive to spread about
in a barn.
So? There still must have been booksellers,
there in the city.
True, but he would have gone for the shadow.
Then Che is not a painter?
No, Che comes here for the company, the
pleasure of being surrounded by his
contemporaries and elders.
And for the quiet.
Yes, and the shadow.
And what about Castro?
Poor Fidel can’t console himself here.
Someone has to keep up appearances.
(c) 2007 Richard Careaga. All rights reserved.
Post a Comment