For Betty
The Advil’s in my bag, well it was before and so it must be now and – oh, loose mints!
“curiously strong" ones in a red-trimmed tin. Trying to be old school. Cheers!
Thanks for meeting up with me again. It’s been a while… So here’s my expired passport.
Why is that still here? Reminds me of when we drank mojitos at the Hemingway bar
in Old Havana. Pure sugar-rum. (No, I won’t give away our secret when your husband
shows up). But remember sitting on the black wooden stools and all those young men
offering to take us dancing after hours at the Salseando Chevere and then marry us,
por fa-VOR? Oh, he’s coming now? —still can’t find those pills. Anyway, we declined
and went back to the Hotel Tejadillo bar together. Alone, of course. I mean just us.
Oops, hardly need these anymore. Huh, an old mirror. Remember that party
when we rolled up bills and sniffed that powder right—I should just give up.
Except you still have that headache….Oh you’re leaving so soon? One more?
Theresa Rogers is a Vancouver-based poet and teacher originally from the U.S. Her work has appeared in the Cape Cod Review, English Bay Review, Uppagus, Cape Cod Times poetry page, Cathexis Northwest Press, Sheila-Na-Gig and other venues. Her first book of poems, Fragments and found things, will soon be published by Kelsay Books, 2025.
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