Tag Archives: Connecticut Setting

Latine Poets

Cultivo

Cultivo

by Luisa Caycedo-Kimura

once mourning doves   made me think

of graveyards

 

today        they peck     at weed seeds

clean        my land

 

the oldest on record     lived 30 years    and 4 months

from the time          it was tagged

 

until         it was shot

how many mates           did it mourn

 

American toads       breed

at the neighbor’s pond

 

I wring       laundry     to hang     on a clothesline

mostly black

 

when I was eight

a man trapped me    in the stairwell

 

to our New York        apartment

the note from his pocket     loose-leaf cutout

 

blue ink print      said I was       beautiful

a scalpel      in his pocket

 

how many      would die

in a war        without weapons

 

I was born        in the middle

of an Andean hurricane     the first time

 

I saw mamá      her blue eyes

reflected green            from the flame

 

of a candle    the last time   in Florida

her eyes         were shut

 

yesterday       Aaron and I      planned

a garden         for our new         Connecticut home

 

asparagus and blueberries can’t be harvested

for two years

 

seeds must avoid      hickory taproots

cilantro      has to be        direct seeded

 

doesn’t like       to be moved

my older sister bought           her first house

 

after med school

lived there               twenty years

 

before renting it out            I’ve moved

twenty times       from rental to rental

 

clouds dissipate        on our ridge

we buy spades      trowels

 

pruners         window sheers

fog on the trees        lingers

 

coats        the open grass

droplets      vaporize       burn the fog

 

how does one quench         an instinct

to bolt

 

Copyright 2021 Luisa Caycedo-Kimura

From All Were Limones (The Word Works, 2025); originally published in Shennandoah, Spring 2021

Used by permission of the author.
Latine Poets

A Cup of Coffee

A Cup of Coffee

by Bessy Reyna

“Watch me!” I Tell Rob,
the lovely dark-haired friend
who has joined me for lunch
“Watch me, I’ll have to pretend
I don’t know that the coffee is a gift from him.”

We dance the tango

Ricardo, the Argentinian man,
is so happy to see me.
It’s been so long since I had lunch
at this small place
hidden on the second floor of an old building

Rob and I sit by the window
talking about books and watching
the people below us
as they stroll on Pratt Street.

Ricardo whispers to me in a voice
with the cadence of the pampas,
¿Querés un café?  Do you want a cup of coffee?
I know I shouldn’t
it would be one too-many for the day,
but I can taste the offer
the I-want-to-give-you-something
because-I-am-so-happy-to-see-you!
bursting behind the smile

we dance the tango

“Watch me” I say to Rob,
I now have to pretend
that I want to pay for the coffee
and he will refuse to take the money.

The proper behavior
the warmth, generosity,
the nostalgia that engulfs me now
In how many restaurants can you get free coffee
just because the owner is happy to see you?

A native language coming back
to rescue me
transforming me
transporting me

At lunch, we danced the tango.

I say goodbye to Rob,
turn and give Ricardo gracias por el café
before I descend the narrow wooden stairs
that return me to
another culture my brave new world.

Around the corner
a homeless man awaits
“Can I have a dime for a cup of coffee?” he asks
His voice startles me,
I smile
“Come with me and I’ll buy you a coffee”
I tell him, pointing at the
“COFFEE AND PASTRIES” sign a few feet away
“No! Not from there”  he shouts annoyed
“From Dunkin Donuts!!”

Of course, he does not want a cup of coffee
I place some quarters in his extended hand
and walk away smiling
dancing the tango
having paid for my coffee after all.

Previously published in She Remembers by Bessy Reyna Andrew Mountain Press. 1997.

Used by permission of the author.
Hiram Percy Maxim

from Horseless Carriage Days

 

Chapter VII of Percy Maxim’s memoir Horseless Carriage Days recounts Maxim’s role in the pioneering of the automobile, particularly:

pioneer days between the years 1893 and 1901, when a ride out into the country in a horseless carriage was an adventure; when that temperamental machine, the gasoline engine, was being tamed; when there were no good roads, no road signs, no road maps, no filling stations; when gasoline had to be purchased either in paint shops before dark or in drug stores; when there were no registration plates, no operator’s licenses, no protection against wind, rain, and cold; and when every horse on the road stood upon his hind legs and made a scene. (Maxim 1937, xi) Continue reading from Horseless Carriage Days →

Mary Ann Tirone Smith

from Masters of Illusion

Masters of Illusion (1994) was Mary-Ann Tirone Smith’s fourth novel. It is a fictional account of the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944 and the decades following. The protagonist and the fire arrive on the first page, and then there’s a life-changing meeting on an Old Saybrook beach. Continue reading from Masters of Illusion →

Mark Twain, Samuel L. Clemens

from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

Clemens’s fascination with English history developed with his visits to the country and his research for The Prince and the Pauper (1881), a tale of a royal and a commoner changing places so each could find out what he had been envying. He was fascinated by the Elizabethan period and its wholesome frankness about sex and bodily functions, which he celebrated in a short obscene work called 1601: Conversation as it Was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors. The book was concealed to all but select male friends, but is now freely readable on the Internet. Continue reading from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court →

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Brendan Gill

Country Fire

“Country Fire,” first published in The New Yorker (October 1, 1938), is an event-driven short story that seems to prefigure Gill’s later interest in architecture and preservation as well as his personal reckoning with a New York/Connecticut divide. While there are many people in the story, the only character that is developed is the community of this Connecticut country town, in amalgamation. If there is an antagonist other than the fire, it is the New Yorkers and the architect lurking in the outskirts of the town’s consciousness. Continue reading Country Fire →

Brendan Gill

The Triumph

“The Triumph” was originally published in The New Yorker (February 1, 1941) and is described as Gill’s finest by the article on his fiction in Gale’s Contemporary Novelists. The story is set in Connecticut and is centered on an elderly woman and her daughter clinging to the mores and social distinctions of the Old World in a way that contrasts ironically with their present circumstances. “The Triumph” ends in a subtle revelation of character that exposes a layer to the story the reader may have missed and increases the title’s irony. Continue reading The Triumph →