Virgil Suárez
La Tempestad: San Lazaro of the crossing
the Haitian sailors rescued him in rough waters,
the old man and his two dogs, how they survived
the storm, nobody can figure out, but the old man
even held onto his crutches & props himself up
toward the back of the boat by the rotting crab traps,
his festering wounds burn with the dry sea salt he says
makes him feel better. The mangy dogs sleep by his feet,
then pant in the heat, then lick the salt off the old
man’s legs, crabs and seaweed hide in his beard,
thickly matted against his sunburned skin ...
the Haitian sailors speak to him in Creole, poke
fun of him, call him a puzzle, which he is, out here
in the middle of the Florida straits. He points
toward the island, not Haiti but Cuba, a steady
leprous finger against the horizon, then says he’s come
to save all those about to cross; those who succumb
find salvation nonetheless, here among the orange-
green ripples of the Gulf, where air is like water,
one vast blue blur of ocean and sky like promise.
Page(s) 65
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