The Papel de Ba
Virgil Su
Everyone I know who goes to Cuba
returns with their own toilet paper
nightmare story. One friend
said when she visited the National Library
in Havana she went to the bathroom
and saw the Dewey Decimal cards
piled on the stained white porcelain,
a scribbled note about wrinkling cards
first before using to make them soft.
Or another story about paperbacks
nailed behind the stall door; you tear
as you need and a warning about not flushing
too many pages for the toilets are old,
their flow tired. Magazines with glossy
pages, old newspapers that leave their ink
traces on fingertips and buttocks.
Somebody can moon you a few words
by Hemingway, de Sade, Dostoyevsky,
or Castro
Copyright © Virgil Su