“The Democrats want America to become Venezuela.”
–Donald J. Trump
Darkness engulfs Key West to Kansas.
The authorities will claim iguanas
gnawed the power cables. Ha! It’s socialism
that will make us as lazy as lizards.
In Savannah and San Francisco,
they’ll waste the day dancing the joropo
as Chicagoans snooze under moriche palms,
Vermonters on siesta get fat on cachapas
and torpid Texans let oil wells sputter.
You won’t be able to buy a book
or a Band-Aid from 1 to 4.
Stock up now, before you’re nipped
by a caiman in lower Manhattan.
But there is an upside.
Things will be more simpatico.
Imagine donning the white liqui liqui
and eating empanadas at a sidewalk café
on a sunny December in Des Moines
while tossing the macaws crumbs
to the buoyant beat of a gaita band!
The buttes of the badlands
will transform into misty tepuis
with scarlet frogs and giant spiky plants.
Our own Angel Falls will pierce the clouds.
In a Rhode Island rainforest echoing
with the hoots of howler monkeys
we’ll raise a glass of papelón con limón.
¡Salud! Gabriel García Marquez –
who was of course Colombian.