You can barely move
out Cuba-way what with
the tourists streaming in
making a killing

(Cuban lives were lost
during our own struggle)

The Cuban Five are free
after endless campaigning
and international solidarity
(via NADEL and FOCUS
right here on our shores)

Open for business as it is
proclaimed of us too
down here in darkest

like a red ribbon cut
grandly at a supermarket
said almost ominously
like local natives beware

I fear
reckons a long-time friend
the normalization so called
of US-Cuba relations
(Cubans cautiously optimistic)

He sees the beginning
of the inevitable
widening inequality
on the island
when the star-spangled
behemoth charges in

On the edge of change
might the benefits be
trade-marked useless
shiny baubles on show

You can barely move

A late-night SAFM radio-jock pronounces himself, February 18 2016. See “Cuba On the edge of change” (National Geographic, Nov 2012), “An allure that endured for an age” (Sunday Argus, Dec 21 2014), “Nadel will never forget the sacrifice and loss of Cuban lives during SA liberation Struggle” (Cape Times Letters, 22 Dec 2014) and “Cubans cautiously optimistic” (Foreign Editor, Cape Times, Aug 5 2015).