Nicelle Davis

Cuba and Coltrane

Cuba. I want to go to Cuba; where we planned to go together. Still the smell of saving change reminds me—we didn’t make it beyond the rabid Atlantic border. You were too busy throwing boxes of Captain Crunch in the yard. Too white for my kitchen, you said.

To match you, I threw your glossy bell peppers in the street, spitting, I don’t know how to cook this shit. In the background the tart sound of A Love Supreme played between your flesh, my flesh. Two things we could agree on: Coltrane and Cuba. Everything else was

a brood of anger hatching. Bending to collect the scatter of yellow sugar-nuggets, I watched you nurse a bruised pepper. Red heat in the palm of your hand. The buzz of a horn like a nest of bees singing. Cuba. We wanted to go to Cuba.