I Have An Eel In My Heart

I have an eel in my heart,
wriggling through every chamber,
popping up from every shipwreck
to startle the divers scavenging down there,
a conger eel from the seas of Chile
amazing the doctors
who spread their hands far apart
to show the other doctors
what they found on the X-rays.

I have an eel in my heart,
fried, fried, fried
from the tables of Chile,
coiling in my chest,
squeezing the red muscle
till I bellow for an all-eel diet.

I have an eel in my heart,
saluted with another glass of wine
by the poets of Chile
who slam the table and argue:
Is this the mermaid with bulging eyes and needle teeth
celebrated in song two hundred years ago
by the lonely pirates of Valparaiso?

I have an eel in my heart.
I want to smuggle the serpent home from Chile,
a guitar case on the Santiago flight
reeking so radiantly
not even the Mormon missionaries
would speak to me.
Oh eel,
Neruda stewed you in an ode,
the Japanese sushi you with a perfect knife,
but I would waltz with you in my kitchen
before I do to you what your cousin the worm
finally does to us all.

-Martin Espada The Republic of Poetry