Cuban For One Night
(Hurricane Michelle, November, 2001)


Tonight we pretend
to be Cuban
as they load us onto buses
from our luxury resort
to a small town
where we mingle with the locals

we are just like them

the hurricane has no interest
in the size of our wallets
we can buy our way out of anything
but this. — Michelle Barker, First Published in Descant, Fall/2006