Here is the second poem published by Rusty Truck.
Havana
Early morning on the wharf, sharing a thermos
with Juan Pablo. He’s brown and scuffed
as old boots, tough like that too, eyes squinted
with age and sun. He knows the ocean
like his woman’s face, reads stars, wind,
waves, like poems. He’s mending a net, hands
stiff and scarred, sorting gnarls and frays,
ash falling from a Camel held square
between his teeth. A tourist interrupts,
though no one’s talking, wants to hire
the boat to fish tarpon. Juan Pablo grunts
and nods toward a salt-soaked sign
with hourly rates. The guy says he’ll be back
with his wife and kid. Juan Pablo watches him
stride toward a hotel, New York cadence
out of step with the lap of water on pilings.
He snorts, then gathers up the net, half done,
stands with a stumble to favor his bum knee.
He jerks his head toward the seamless join
of sea and sky. C’mon, he says, taking the stub
of Camel and grinding it under his heel.
That cabrón can hire another boat.
Sarah Russell Poetry 