Literary Zone

Poetry: The Last Salsa in New York

7 August 2019 at 22:30 | 8109 views

The Last Salsa in New York

By fayia sellu, Berkeley, USA.

Fishes are not the only things
That pass under the Brooklyn Bridge
O! the hearts that carry buried knives
Draping blood of innocence unchaste
Past the Manhattan Bridge
At the ridge of love
Manhattan lights could not enchant
The darkness of Brooklyn’s underbelly
Those stained mirrors reflect stained hearts
That white teeth, fancy dinners won’t cleanse

At the nose of China Town
Gawks Manhattan ambient lure
But the roses are no more red
Primero, the violets were nunca blue
My... steps...and swirls
Merely odes to the practiced motions
This aplomb is absent emotions
Emotions were buried yesterday
When Little Italy beckoned
And senorita said: "Arios".

You built all those steps
Those frantic mores’
On lies
Now eat your own heart
Perambulating Manhattan, make your pillow
With frozen words and sorrow
It is you, you, you
Indeed you
Whose blood never splattered
On either side of the train tracks
Whose soul never embraced Jesus
In Brooklyn’s entrails
The scorned gem yearning polishing
Nourishing, even fetishising
By it’s own
Splurging your ghoulish thoughts
to relive, publish and relish
Soaring thousands of feet
Caged in an aluminum bird’s guts
With strangers—an Ex included
And senorita said: Adios.

Editor’s Note: Fayia Sellu, from Sierra Leone, is a PhD student at UC Berkeley
and occassionally writes for the Patriotic Vanguard.

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