Pecked

by jad

In the burnt streets of Havana

behind the peeling pastel columns

shrugging under the weight of patched, hot tar roofs baking in the island sun

are the pits where they pit the birds against each other.

 

Behind the porches, once lavish

are the ramshackle bleachers where they watch

in torn old cotton and brown skin

the frenzied fowls fight

to death. For life.

 

Behind the rotted infirm doors, and through the dim dusty halls

are the calls for violence, the screams of hope for the right murder.

 

Behind the bedrooms lit by gap toothed chandeliers

and lonely bulbs, flickering through the shaded afternoon;

behind bathrooms of chipped and broken Chinese porcelain;

behind the balconies built of felled centenarian arbor;

and behind the gap-toothed balustrades

with their delicate carvings, worn indiscernibly into tumorous lumps

are the money lenders and collectors, the betters, and voyuers.

 

Behind these old mansions

a new people, squatters and opportunists in a craftsman’s world,

wager on a worthless war

between animals who are no real foes.

 

I wagered my heart on Casual Thunder.

And I lost it,

not because his blood pulsed fleetingly into the brown sands where he lay

but because I bore witness to a senseless death

and did nothing.