When I was 5 she taught me to Mambo
Shaking my little girl hips with Mambomania
She and I, dancing around the room
Grooving to Perez Prado’s Cherry Pink
And Apple Blossom White until he’d come home
Smelling of liquor and women
Stopping the music every time
He walked through the door
Staggering, stumbling, bumping into furniture
While cursing and swinging before falling
Against the phonograph knocking the Mambo King
From his throne, stealing our magic
That made us dance Mambo, Merengue
Cha-cha-cha to Afro Cuban drums
She packed our bags while he was passed out
On the sofa, his slobber staining the green
Flowered pillows, she carefully put Perez
Into his album cover, slipped him into a suitcase
Then took my hand to walk down Avalon
To catch the red bus, smiling and humming
Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White
My mother’s music that made magic.
| Mambomania |
| by Aurora M. Lewis |
Gemini Magazine
_______________________
Aurora M. Lewis'
new chapbook,
Forget-Me-Knots, is
available from
erbacce-press. A
graduate of UCLA's
Creative Writing
Certificate Program,
Aurora has published
poetry and fiction in
Dreamers' Reality,
the Battered
Suitcase, Up the
Staircase, and
Wordgathering.
new chapbook,
Forget-Me-Knots, is
available from
erbacce-press. A
graduate of UCLA's
Creative Writing
Certificate Program,
Aurora has published
poetry and fiction in
Dreamers' Reality,
the Battered
Suitcase, Up the
Staircase, and
Wordgathering.
|