Romantic Fruit

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Romantic Fruit
A friend once told me that the art of poetry in the Soviet Union
was an exercise in the imitation of freedom.
Navigating the tightrope of Intellectual thought with a blindfold.
Always encouraged with implied limitations.
My father once told me he recited a political poem to a standing ovation,
only to be asked politely by the KGB never to repeat.
People disappeared like words on a chalkboard.
His limitation made clear.
At an outdoor Café in Athens, a poor young woman complained,
she could not afford fruit.
Greece is for the tourist.
She sheepishly confessed between exhalations of smoke,
she was a communist.
I laughed and said, it didn’t go very well for Russia.
With a romantic glint in her eye, she corrected me. No,
more like Cuba.
A young man from Cuba once told me he never tasted an orange
until he came to America.
I asked him why.
He shrugged. Because
they were only for the tourist.