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Coca-Cola and Coco Frío
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On his first visit to Puerto Rico,
- island of family folklore,
- the fat boy wandered
- from table to table
- with his mouth open.
- At every table, some great-aunt
- would steer him with cool spotted hands
- to a glass of Coca-Cola.
- One even sang to him, in all the English
- she could remember, a Coca-Cola jingle
- from the forties. He drank obediently, though
- he was bored with this potion, familiar
- from soda fountains in Brooklyn.
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- Then, at a roadside stand off the beach, the fat boy
- opened his mouth to coco frío, a coconut
- chilled, then scalped by a machete
- so that a straw could inhale the clear milk.
- The boy tilted the green shell overhead
- and drooled coconut milk down his chin;
- suddenly, Puerto Rico was not Coca-Cola
- or Brooklyn, and neither was he.
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- For years afterward, the boy marveled at an island
- where the people drank Coca-Cola
- and sang jingles from World War II
- in a language they did not speak,
- while so many coconuts in the trees
- sagged heavy with milk, swollen
- and unsuckled.
from
City of Coughing and Dead Radiators |
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