LUXURIES
BY NATALIE ROSE RICHARDSON
In Santo Domingo—
the neighbor boy’s belly
a maze of dirt lines—electric wires
exposed—each street a limb
splaying its wiry network
as if mid-surgery.
Every turn shocks you
like a woman’s wig waved
from a window—the street
market of Los Millones—a feast
of tables heavy with cotton
shirts, children’s pajamas,
bunches of uvas de playas
glinting like glass
eyes in a crate—
Later at the resort
a dark man in uniform
offers you cold juice from a tray—
enormous palms
fan velvet couches—a harem
of heated pools blaze
outside, where children
splash their floatable arms.
A maid—her nose
like yours—leads you
to a too-cold room— gaunt
air conditioner sweating under
the window’s sill—& you
recall reading once of
a Dominican military officer
who invited foreign
diplomats to his home,
offered them such cool luxuries—
once, even the still-warm
breasts of a female slave—sliced
like the halves of an apple
on a silver tray.
