by Gerald Locklin

Toad had always assumed
He would one day make
A return trip to Cuba,
Where he’d enjoyed
A Hemingway Symposium
In the summer of 1997,

Until Obama decreed
He was going to allow
Every Tom, Jose, and Hairy Dick
Not only to visit the fabled isle
And sample its cigars, rums, and
Sugar cane,

But, for a nominal fee,
Take a guided tour of Guantanamo
And, when the tides were right,
Try their hands (and feet and faces)
At their choice of either surfboarding
Or waterboarding.

by Donna J. Long

His proposal was unexpected.  I leapt
delighted — yes — into his arms, eager
for pleasure legal & tender.  Shopping for

a diamond ring I discovered he had
so much money and a great desire
to buy the latest electronic — whatever —

for himself.  I said no, set on a stone
that wasn’t just.  He grumbled & was proud
how his parents exclaimed.  I have small hands

& it fit.  I can’t put my finger on why
I believed a gold ring on my finger
guaranteed we would succeed, suddenly

be resilient against temptations of
the flesh — in other words his to loan his —
but as if I owned it I took the blame

he offered.  I can say this: I shouldn’t have
paid for everything — the license, the justice
of the peace, the place, the meal, the rings

we exchanged with our vows.  At the time
he was broke & I told myself
I wanted it just so.  I wanted it

just so he would say “’til death do us part”
& “in sickness and in health.”  That part
I bought.  How useful rings are, you know,

the wheel, the noose, handcuffs, in the circus
girls riding round & round.  The rings
on my vanity remind me he left

a lot of stuff — paper, wood, linen, willow.

by Donna J. Long

A window by day hides
what’s inside, like a mirror
reveals only an exterior.
Architecture teaches me to
be able to look within
depends on the light cast.
If late at night I see
a stranger undressing,
I may find myself
arrested.  Small break,
aversion rendered
thin as this glass pane
between me and the world.

by Donna J. Long

The Departure
Tulum, Mexico

The market square is shuttered, empty
but for the dogs standing around, barely

glancing at us as we leave to catch
a six a.m. bus at the crossroads.  In Tulum

the dogs are quiet — they don’t waste
their energy to bark.  One dog stretches

across the walk, another mongrel worn
by starvation, worms, disease.  Lisa coos,

thinking it asleep, but I remember this
stillness after my mother’s last breath.

It isn’t seeing the lungs rise and fall, eyes
open and close, but the subtle vibration

of cells life requires.  And then it stops.
The dog was dead.  We caught our bus.