.
Cuba
we have free education
but speech
is restricted
so the U.S.
imposed an embargo
they reported on our shortages,
of medicine to milk,
evidence of
imminent collapse of our
socialism
(think Venezuela)
should we permit them to proffer us
a leader of their leaning,
we once more
for the first time since Batista,
we’ll be in their favor,
our daily survival no longer stifled,
by their bloqueo
each subsidized success will be,
claimed as victory for the
capitalist
.
U.S.
healthcare
is not free
for ordinary citizens, the poor
demonized,
in the press,
lack
portrayed as
failure,
long-standing,
yet, recent history
show that should we surrender,
—and allow wealth to be our god—
a lying man of questionable means,
will ascend,
corrupt leader,
privileged,
not challenged
and then
we’ll be
uber
colonizer
Lea Aschkenas is the author of the memoir, Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island. She works at a bilingual public library, teaches with California Poets in the Schools, and is published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, and Atlanta Review.
