~VIRGIL SUAREZ~

ISLA DE LA JUVENTUD

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Island within island, Isle of Youth,
     an egg born out of the crocodile,
as if to say I am done with you.
     Go make your way in this ocean,
Gulf of Batabano & Caribbean Sea.

Children travel here from all over,
     outcasts from adoption centers,
abuse, neglect, sweatshop slavery.
     The revolution promised them
sanctuary for now, later abandons

them like everything and everyone
     else in their miserable, short lives:
star-crossed lovers meet here,
     young, rebellious against adulthood,
all the poisons of man-constructed

ideals, even this one, green like
     papaya, unripe sour of guayabas—
little lies told by the main guayabero,
     a man everyone says is coming
but never appears—these reflections

constructed on the surface of still
     waters.  What you see is not what
you dreamt.
     This is the island of a thousand deaths,
a thousand rebirths dissolved

in these shallows of bitter waters.
 

© by Virgil Suarez