Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Mark Prudowsky

Eating Gelato in Cartagena

The writer posing as Mark and seated
in a small plaza named after Augustin
in Cartagena's old city, confesses

his privilege to sit by the cathedral,
doing nothing more than eating gelato
while

the writer posing as Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
who is neither here in the plaza
nor in the gelateria, which by the way,

has a lovely
if unimaginative interior
and splendid gelato,

indicates this idle inclusion
breaches a privacy held very dear
while

the privacy of the Spanish fort
posing as San Felipe de Barahas,
never breached by long-ago pirates,

today expresses a certain
unease with those probing its caverns and tunnels,
while keeping its consul about a certain

slave irritated by the castillo's construction
(to say nothing of the slave's mother's concerns).
Neither the slave nor his mother

likely shared a bench in the plaza
like this mother and son do now,
here, by the cathedral, eating gelato,

confessing no privilege but one.



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