Virgil Suarez

 

 

Song to the Plantain

 

everywhere my father went, from Miami

to Los Angeles, and back, grew plantain

by the side of our rented houses, nursed

the baby stalks after each winter’s cold snaps,

watched as the plants unfolded their green

fronds to the sun, grew upward and away

from the house walls, a striking contrast

between vermilion leaf and trunk’s

brown, joyous that each year a new plant

grew fruit, bunches of plantains, skinny

fingers clasped like hands of prayer, hung

in an arch from the stems, racimos, my father

how they clung together, and when ripened

he brought them inside the house, or sat

in the shade of the porch and ate them, one

after another, this harvest left him in exile.

Virgil Suarez was born in Havana, Cuba and has resided in the United States since 1974. He teaches creative writing and Latino/a and Caribbean Literature at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL. His poetry and fiction have been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and has received one Pushcart Prize this year. He has work published in TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, and The Mississippi Review. Palm Crows, his fifth collection of poetry is being published from the University of Arizona Press "Camino del Sol" Series.