Allegory

By Rafael Campo

Outside somewhere, beneath an atmosphere

So pure and new each breath is musical

And silent, mouth-watering, without taste,

So full of butterflies one can’t imagine

Because it hurts to be so free, out there

There was a hospital where AIDS was cured

With Chinese cucumbers and royal jelly,

With herbal medicines, vaccines, colostrum.

I went there in a submarine, through space

It seemed, and I was armed with nuclear

ICBMs. I read The New York Times,

That’s how relaxed and skeptical I was;

I sat upon the floor, my back against

The gleaming missiles. Strangely , no one else

But me was on the submarine, except

The President, whom I’d confined beneath

The lowest deck, inside somewhere where air

Was scarce and hardly breathable. One can’t

Imagine what it’s like to see a world

Like theirs from such a distance for the first

Time: God, was it beautiful, butterflies

And silent musical wind, the hospital

Where no one paid. I tried to give them small

Pox, missiles, blankets; they looked at me

Like I was crazy, and they asked me why

The President had been incarcerated.

There’s no explaining of morality

To savages, I thought. And though it hurt

To leave, to conquer them and take with me

The royal jelly and colostrum, when I aimed

My missiles at their hospital I felt

Much better. Munching on a cucumber,

The light of the explosion brightening

My face, I couldn’t help the tears, I was

So sad and happy, all at once, again.

Copyright Credit: Rafael Campo, “Allegory” from The Other Man Was Me: A Voyage to the New World. Copyright © 1994 by Rafael Campo. Reprinted by permission of Arte Público Press.

Source: The Other Man Was Me: A Voyage to the New World (Arte Público Press, 1994)