Alegria By Le Hinton
Alegria
By Le Hinton
her eyes are the color of cataracts
which allows her to see
positrons and electrons
for what they are
smaller versions of stand-up comics
or the leads in a romantic comedy
where the girl gets the boy
once i asked her
what does Granada look like from a distance
“joyful fun†was all she said
ever conscious of God
she can hold a cannoli in her mouth
without it melting
instantly i understood what can happen
when you drive to Damascus to pick up some
cigarettes and a bottle of Sangria
we sailed to Brazil
and she taught me cunnilingus in Portuguese
a talent that still makes me
popular at parties after midnight
but she dumped me at the base of Cristo Redentor
and explained that i was
too short-sighted and long-winded
to go with her to the convent
i went to Washington instead
though i wanted to fly to Portugal
to found a new religion
although the latitude of Lisbon and D.C. are about the same i couldn’t find the saints that i savored
so i settled for another bottle of Sangria
and a picture of the Virgin Mary
no comments on this poem, huh? I found myself really enjoying it quite a bit, and smiled all the way through. That doesn’t happen very often.
i often want to fly to portugal as well. costa de caprica is one of my favorite spots.
“E cor de burro quando foge”
it’s the color of a donkey on the run
Besides my wife, one of my favorite Portuguese things is the idioms. A Portuguese friend once told me “If you want to learn Portuguese, first you have to learn all the words. Then you have to learn that the words never mean what they say.”
By the way, I’m pretty sure that the eggheads at CERN recently discovered that the positrons each have tiny seltzer bottles, and the electrons have two cream pies that appear and disappear with apparent rhythmic counterpoint.