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"The Lover of a Subversive is Also a Subversive"
The lover of a subversive is also a subversive. The painter's compañero was a conspirator, revolutionary convicted to haunt the catacombs of federal prison for the next half century. When she painted her canvas on the beach, the FBI man squatted behind her on the sand, muddying his dark gray suit and kissing his walkie-talkie, a pallbearer who missed the funeral train.
The painter who paints a subversive is also a subversive. In her portrait of him, she imagines his long black twist of hair. In her portraits of herself, she wears a mask or has no mouth. She must sell the canvases, for the FBI man ministered solemnly to the principal at the school where she once taught.
The woman who grieves for a subversive is also a subversive. The FBI man is a pale-skinned apparition staring in the subway. She could reach for him and only touch a pillar of ash where the dark gray suit had been. If she hungers to touch her lover, she must brush her fingers on moist canvas.
The lover of a subversive is also a subversive. When the beach chilled cold, and the bright stumble of tourists deserted, she and the FBI man were left alone with their spying glances, as he waited calmly for the sobbing to begin, and she refused to sob.
—Martín Espada
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