buenos
buenos
by emma bean
I.
People
protesting in
the capital in the plaza
in the streets i’ve read
saw them i
passed overhead
someone took a picture
country roads
they’re shouting
shouting i
try to understand i
am here put
down the newspaper
put out my cigarette
sip the last drop of
beer gone flat
i pick up a pencil, flat,
i’ll sharpen it and
wait. While i wait
i light another cigarette
and i wait
II.
You and I met
over pizza and cigarettes
I thought you spoke French
so I kissed you. You
told jokes in English
and knew what retro
meant. So I kissed you.
You tell me, I look like
Betty Boop, well I
think you might be like
Tintin.
III.
Your eyes are always turned
upwards, but hung up on
terraces & facades, caught
between bricks in the mortar
gliding over marmol monuments
you miss the sky! Do you see
the prints you make in the dust?
and the color of faded tiles
(though like a true porteño,
always miss the steaming
piles of dog shit). I only
hope that you don’t miss
the best of the turning fall’s
sun or the pressure I put on
your hand, and that you re-
member to look both ways
before you cross the street.
Porteño (feminine: porteña) in Spanish is used to refer to a person who is from or lives in a port city, but it can also be used as an adjective for anything related to those port cities. It is usually applied to the port city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and since the end of the 19th century Porteños has come to be the name of the people from that city.
aha–hence the title–‘Buenos’. I haven’t kept up on current events to know that there even was protesting or social/political unrest in Argentina but this background sorta lets me make more sense of or appreciation of the 1st stanza moving into the 2nd and 3rd. When the reader gets involved with a poem like figuring out a fun mystery it’s really enthralling!
‘Betty Boop’ and Rin- ‘Tintin’…adding these personal ingredients to the poem make it more authentic and believeable, i think–it’s always cool to see some subjective elements in a piece. I enjoyed the read! Thx.