I Saw Assata in Havana
at a farmer’s market I’d visited, Calle 19 y B, her visage wholly
unbothered, starkest foil to the New York metro area police posters dated ’73
which an inmate, first meeting her behind bars, reportedly said made her seem
bigger, scarier, than in real life. She’s a figure in at least two imaginaries. In one of them
swathed in teal and jade Ankara atop a wicker peacock chair near the pork, fist up
the whole time. In the other, this one, a simple tee and denim daytime look, rounded
gold earrings with little leaves on ’em, braids stretching behind her: veins,
deltas sketched on a map, black and black-
and-blue, hands shuffling through the produce, hands
unbound, skin so lively and smooth she looked in-person airbrushed
to my dream eyes. I approached at first
with Spanish to present a bit less of a threat.
You’re from Jersey? Which part?
Up north, Essex and Hudson counties.
You here for that two mil, then?
Well, yes! Got the ropes in this tote bag.
The rest fell to morning fog when I awoke, except the smile
that filled her face and her laughs that grew
in strength, upward, upward, like the sunflower
that bursts up behind the actors in Sarah Kane’s Cleansed
and climbs till it surpasses their height,
a laughter reaching high
from the Cuban ground even after we parted ways, even after
she exited with friends.
Anarchic Ode
after E. Hughes
Two pigeons strut the tile floor
of the bus station, Pittsburgh, below shadows
of Gate 8’s stanchions,
around the stanchions—across them.
They care not
for bureaucracy, nor even
the idea of a queue, slipping and slicing
through paths mapped by nylon
belts: red and blue. I honor
their lawlessness
and flightless scans alike as they prowl
the scene for snacks, governed
by appetite alone.
Kyle Carrero Lopez is the author of the poetry collection Party Line, forthcoming July 2026 from Graywolf Press. He’s a Cave Canem fellow and an Editor for the Poetry Project Newsletter.
