"Santiago Affair" by Cyrus Cassells
Santiago Affair
It's tickling to have an athletic new lover, Virile citizen who artfully maintains The metropolis’s countless fountains, A vocation intrinsically Fairy-tale appealing & phallic. Meticulous Melchior admits He overheard me singing Acapella near the esplanade & shadowed me in the Parque Forestal To further his English... Summer-venerating Mel, My January sun cicerone, shares Chile's scrumptious native dish, His unfailing pastel de choclo & ushers me through Exhilarating queer barrios Blessed with lyrical names: Lastarria, Bella Vista— Before La Moneda, the presidential palace, My shrewd custodian relates His slender, southernmost country’s Unrelenting political seesaw: Translation: “Right & Left Tantamount to a pair of headlong, Ready-to-roll arm-wrestlers”— I gasp, when, with little warning, We suddenly reach Londres #38, Notorious location Of veering detention and torture— In the land of the reliably festive & the perennially violent, We brand-new novios watch Pablo Larrain's El Conde, Spectacular black & white satire (Oscar-nommed for cinematography— Let’s hear it, ladies & gentlemen, For unabashed hometown pride!) With a sad-sack vampire version Of censorius President-for-Life Pinochet Soaring & scanning a bric-a-brac Facsimile of Santiago’s Multiple lambent streets & inkwell-dark alleyways For his ensuing blood-scrumptious meals— O earthquake-jostled world Of contradiction! O Chile of newfound romance & haunting carnage! Santiago, January 2025
Audio: Cyrus Cassells reads “Santiago Affair”
Photo Credit: Brenda Ladd
2021 Texas Poet Laureate Cyrus Cassells is the author of 12 volumes of poetry, including Lorca to the Umpteenth Power (June 2026). A Poet is Cousin to Life Itself and The Man with the Oar on His Shoulder: Poems of Francesc Parcerisas are due out in March 2027. Among his honors: the 2025 Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers; a 2019 Guggenheim fellowship; and a Lambda Literary Award for Beautiful Signor.