Professor C

a poem by Roger B Rueda

like Lauren Weisberger’s Miranda
in The Devil Wears Prada
was standing
by the sordid street
near the hospital, waiting
for her pork barbecue,
her face stoic when
she saw me from the corner
of her eye, Andrea Sachs
on my mind (and I hoped
on hers, too).
Making her salivate, plumes
of smoke
billowed from the broiler
once in a while.
Ugly as sin, the young woman,
the kind that she’d pour
scorn on,
cooking really well
but rather messy
sat down and began
fanning the dying
embers of the fire.
When it vanished, the devil
inhaled deeply,
swallowing hard.
She seemed to hurry
into telling the woman
it was well-done already.
Her barbecue and the trisikad
drivers’ smelled
slightly sweet and peppery
with too much annatto.
She was watching
the world go by,
and me, standing near,
finely: her avatar
wearing Prada
in my brain vanished
in a puff of smoke all of a sudden.