A Poem by Rey Armenteros

Orange Cola Blues

Yesterday’s trees were nothing like today, now stripped of all but a few drops of baked color on black branches receding from the pale sky like capillary x-rays diagnosing the coming of winter.

I wanted to believe this scrolling image at the window was another world; I wanted to believe that I was a part of this one or that one but…

I was prone to reaction. I don’t go with it the moment it’s going. Every time I let go of the hand ring to adjust my bag, the train shifts, throwing me forward, and then shifting again when I change hands, throwing me sideways. As I was regaining my balance, a woman reading a book was looking around and landing her eyes on me before giving me a smile. I smiled back. But her gaze was already back at the book. I became conscious of the disapproving stare from the man to my left. But that man must have left two stops ago because when I turned to meet his look, he was the face on an ad.

The train stops. A large banner flutters in the wind. It is a woman holding up a cola, a so-called flat object on an orange strip of canvas. Braiding air currents agitate her figure into a flapping dance when folds recapture contours that are already released when you register them. With all that rapidity happening, there is no way for you to appreciate her looks, but I have the sudden ability to hold her frozen for an instant, caught in my inner eye as a furrowed torso on an expanding ass.

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Rey Armenteros is a Los Angeles-based painter and writer who has had his essays and poetry appear in numerous literary journals and art magazines, including The Nasiona, Lunch Ticket, Umbrella Factory Magazine, and Still Point Arts Quarterly.