In Cuba medicine is without medicine
education without global access
Lawyers supplement their meager income
as ladies of the night-shift for the European tourists
ticket to freedom through marriage
An Island of regrets and sensuality
removed from civilization
raped by the Spaniards, tended by the Africans
Caribbean beauty lost to communism
Her soul and rhythm nourished with
Cafe negro, tobacco smoke and rum
black beans and sticky sweet fried bananas
Her balmy waters forever sultry-sexy
preserved in the formaldehyde
of Castro's perverse dilapidation
frozen in time
in the year 1959
