for Gabriel García Márquez
Did you wear the black shoes,
the patent leather ones?
The streets are clean
where you are going, or
so they say.
Gabo, take a little detour
down this fine powder road,
to the wooden shack
where the beers are colder
than cruelty.
All the tables & chairs are dressed
in cheesecloth, the lovers,
sex workers, & soldiers you fathered
wait to smell your cologne one last time.
Please come for the day,
I am roasting a pig in a matchbox,
the village tailor is making
a suit for you—out of palm leaves.
The colonel organized a parade,
we are naming the town after you
follow me down the road.
It is here, just the way you wrote it,
vamos Gabo, come back to us.
