The ending of a poem I’ve read recently goes thus:

On the plus, foods in hispanophone kitchens taste richer when spoken. zanahoria for carrot. melocotón names peach. many cubans say fruta bomba for papaya. mitt romney once claimed he loves papaya on miami cuban radio, unaware it means pussy. que clueless, que jokes, when we speak before we know.

(Kyle Carrero Lopez, “(slang)uage,” Poetry, May 2020).

In the contributor notes Kyle Carrero Lopez is listed as a Black Cuban-American born and raised in North Jersey, now living in Brooklyn.

His poem titled “(slang)uage” pokes two fingers in the peepholes of all the o’graphical niceties — typo-, ortho-, lexico-, pepsico, et al. — that you rode in on. And what Romney said he loved is Cuban slang for snatch!

The poem sends me back to my kid culture, where we dreamed of taking a girl’s cherry. It would have been awesome at 14 to hear an old guy say he loved cherries, unaware it means virginity. Pussy traps for pinche interlopers. ¡jajaja!

(c) 2020 JMN