the steep, brightly flowered hills of town,
passing old houses with climbing vines
that enclose wide-open windows and doors,
an invitation for the sea breeze, doves,
butterflies, wasps,
perhaps also thieves.…
At home in my kitchen,
I check the refrigerator,
finding it empty as usual.
No electricity either.
Just invisible
wishes.
Herding Teenagers
The singing dog
If he can somehow manage to urge them
toward each other, then neither one will feel
so completely alone, and his unusual instincts
tell him that these two are so perfectly
right for each other that if he fails
to meet his natural goal they will wander
like detached spirits, souls just as starved
as bodies.…
The last time a singing dog worked at matchmaking
was in the human year 1519, when a violent pirate
named Hernán Cortés had stolen a ship and anchored
on the island’s southern shore,
recruiting all the Spanish men
of Trinidad de Cuba as soldiers,
then seizing all the native Ciboney Taíno men
as enslaved porters for an expedition
of slaughter and conquest, across the western sea
south of Aztlán, land of Moctezuma, ruler of Tenochtitlán.
Only women, children, and singing dogs
were left behind in the village of Trinidad,
along with one guard and one prisoner,
a pacifist called Uría, half Ciboney
and half Canary Islander, a poetic scribe
who loved to write
and refused to fight.
A singing dog led a Ciboney girl called Arima
to the little prison, where she freed Uría,
then helped him escape, and showed him
how to thrive in el monte, wild mountains,
dense jungle, her home.
Now this new boy called Amado is peaceful like Uría,
and the girl named Liana is brave like Arima,
so the modern dog’s task is clear—
just guide these two young people until
they accept each other’s companionship.
Some matches are simply
meant to be.
If you lived in another time and place,
you might think of the singing dog as a winged thing:
Eros.
Cupid.
A guardian
who specializes
in love.
Admiration
Liana
The tall boy is calm like a palm tree
when standing motionless,
then fiery as a solar flare
as he rages against poverty,
blaming all three governments—
Cuba for failing to plant food crops,
the US for isolating us with a senseless
trade embargo, and Russia for making us so
completely dependent on handouts that when
we’re abandoned
we starve.
The boy is smart
honest
gentle.
It’s enough to make my heart and mind
feel as wide and far-reaching as the sky.
Confusion Is Another Word for Wishes
Amado
The girl is
eye-light
dream-light
fierce-bright
so perfectly
furiously
intelligent
and yet
she seems
distant
as if she
might
suddenly
flee.
Inventing a Meal
Liana
Why waste energy on daydreams
when I could be foraging?
I tell myself to think of nothing but food
and the dog, whom I decide to call Paz,
because he brings me such an unusual
form of peace, the kind of tranquility
that feels liberating, like a wild
sigh
of relief.
Back at the beach the next evening,
Paz and I conjure a supper of coiled seaweed,
plopping it into the milky heart of a coconut
that I salvaged
from a towering
palm tree.
Just enough food
to make me feel even more
hollow.
Aquatic
Amado
When I see the girl stirring
something mysterious
I’m drawn to a view of green slime,
food suitable only for seagulls.
Inventar. Invent.
No es fácil. It’s not easy.
La lucha. The struggle.
Without my brother’s
poetic code words,
where would I be?
Determined to invent, resolve, work hard,
and struggle, I plunge into a rocky coral pool,
my eager fist rewarding me with a tightly clasped
moray eel, grabbed right behind the head like a snake,
to make the ferocious teeth
helpless.
Skinned eel flesh, the cracked claws of red crabs,
smelly seaweed,
sweet coconut milk,
all of it boiled and swirled,
then swallowed.…
Such a bizarre feast,
spontaneously created
and recklessly shared
with a girl who barely
acknowledges
that I exist.
Why do I fool myself into imagining
a bonfire of warm, explosive passion,
when all she’s willing to radiate
is this cold light
of wave-washed
indifference?
The Music of Food
Liana
Paz sings
while I cook with driftwood.
The tall boy joins in, more wolf howl
than melody.
Horizon of waves.
Wind on the beach.
My own voice is silence,
this slowly gathered
secretive
strength.
We eat like ravenous beasts,
slurping
gurgling
murmuring
syllables of gratitude
for a weird meal
of satisfying
scraps.
Attraction
Liana
Embers flare
within the heart’s sky
like fireflies that blink
as they search
for mates.
Natural.
Musical.
Rhythmic.
The pulse in my mind wanders away
from hunger, toward something I can barely name.
A spark
of wishlight
on the dark horizon’s
oceanic warmth.
If only I could allow my voice to burn energy,
admitting that I truly crave this boy’s
smile.
Her Eyes Are…
Amado
magnets, a force of gravity pulling me downward,
an ability to draw patterns of movement along
this earth-and-sea surface, like moon tides
or tree roots
sinking.
But love
at first, second, third,
or ten millionth glimpse
is mythical,
isn’t
it?
Night Hunger
Amado
I walk home alone,
leaving the girl and her eerie dog
&n
bsp; immersed in their private world
of wordless
communication.
Apagón. Blackout.
No power.
No lights.
I won’t
be able to read or write.
No way to watch preparations
for the global games
on our old black-and-white
Russian television.
So I go to bed early, dreaming
of a skinny sirena, a mermaid,
musical
ingenious
maybe even
dangerous.
Imaginary
or real?
In dreams
and daydreams
there is no difference.
Maybe love at first sight actually does exist
for those who are well-fed enough
to
sleep.
Wide Awake
Amado
Picturing the girl, I can’t keep my eyes closed.
I think of my parents in the other room,
married for decades, affectionate, faithful.
They mourn my decision to defy the authorities,
in a skeptical way.
Now I’ll never be chosen for a good school,
mamá warns, and I’ll always be treated
like a dangerous criminal, papá admonishes,
as if being the brother of a political prisoner
weren’t already risky enough.
Fear-stricken.
Fright-sickened.
Petrified by my
damaged future.
If I let myself absorb that parental terror
I’ll fade away like a meteor, all my natural fire
destroyed.
Priorities
Liana
Amado is a word that means loved.
Who would give an ordinary boy
such an old-fashioned name?
His mother must be one of those romantic women
who lacks a modern imagination, she probably
embroiders or makes lace in her spare time,
following traditions left over from long ago.
If Amado thinks I’ll fall for him, he’s wrong.
He’s attractive in his own howling way
but I don’t need a boyfriend—not now
during this food crisis, when all I crave
should be calories,
although somehow
I seem to be swallowing
more fantasies of romance than actual food.
If only Amado
were not so appealing.…
Perseverance
The singing dog
Nose-reach. It’s the length of a dog’s ability to sniff,
a canine measure of inhaled distance.
The only thing he understands is how to lead, guide,
breathe, so he persists, following any scent that smells
delicious, because without aromas, there can be
no flavors. Taste has an odor, and every mouth
needs to savor the air that surrounds
each
fragrant
bite.
His quest for food continues,
along with the true goal: togetherness.
Love.
Daybreak
Liana
Waves, sky, birds,
all this natural expanse of beauty
does not seem to belong to the same world
as starvation.
Each gust of wind
makes me think of breakfast
while Paz and I scan soft sand in search
of a freshly beached flying fish.
Sometimes they leap so far that they land
in this terrestrial realm, where empty air
is the only abundant
substitute
for fullness.
Breathe, listen, gaze, reach—I imitate
every one of the dog’s optimistic actions
as he leads me toward
sunlit
possibilities.
Pessimism
Amado
How unnatural the dog’s eagerness seems.
Can’t he see that we’re spending too much energy
in our constant effort to gain scraps of nutrition?
Selfish, greedy, suspicious,
narrow,
that’s how I feel,
just as thin
and threadlike
as a strand
of seaweed,
that can vanish
without being noticed
by the tide.
Jokes and riddles
used to keep my brother cheerful.
What are the three successes of the revolution?
Sports, medicine, literacy.
What are the three failures?
Breakfast, lunch, dinner.
By the time he went to prison
we were already so close to starving
that his humor grew increasingly grim.
What do all young cubanos want to be
when we grow up
he would ask,
providing the cynical answer
himself:
Extranjeros.
Foreigners.
Too Many Mirrors
Liana
Each time I glimpse my form
in a watery reflection
or a window,
I see clothing so shabby
that I resemble a witch in a fairy tale.
What the mirrors don’t show
is even worse, hidden beneath
ragged shirts and faded shorts:
underwear
in shreds,
the soft cloth
falling apart
in so many places
that it shifts like clouds
on a sky
of bronze flesh.
There is no way to feel comfortable, dressed
in this restless cotton storm—but finding
new clothes
would be just as impossible
as trying to buy
beef
or optimism.
All I can do
is search the beach,
hoping to locate a few wisps
of floating fabric that can be cut and stitched
to create an illusion of garments.
Each time I go home to my worried parents
I stare into their starving eyes
and feel
guilty.
Under ordinary circumstances, they would never
allow me to ramble unsupervised
like a ghost.
When I talk to them, they answer, but never
honestly, because they want to reassure me
in a situation so desperate that the truth
would be cruel.
A Cautious Conversation
Liana
Mami asks what I do when I’m gone
for hours on end, so I pretend
that I run on the beach,
training so I can try out
for a school team
that might lead
to the Olympics
or some other
games.
Imagínate, I say, hoping she’ll obey
and imagine me winning races
in some future version of this year’s
Juegos panamericanos,
so that I can be successful
even without being accepted
to medical school…
but we both know the government
won’t choose me for any athletic program either,
not after I rejected my chance to demonstrate
absolute, unquestioning
patriotic loyalty.
Imagínate, Mami echoes,
just imagine how terrible it would be
to live someplace else, in another country
with fewer opportunities!
She shouts it loudly, bellowing
to make sure neighbors overhear her
if they happen to be passing by on the street
and cup one ear against our wall, trying
to determine whether I’m really
as notoriously lazy
or dangerously
traitorous
as the local gossips
will surely
insist.
Secret Police
Amado
State Security agents stroll along our street
even more often than they check up
on real criminals.
Any home where one teenager has refused
to show up for military service, and another evades
summer labor
is a place where other forbidden ideas
might be discovered,
so the plainclothesmen
in their dark slacks,
white guayabera shirts,
and polished black leather shoes
watch, watch, watch our house
to see who comes in
or goes out.
Each time I leave to meet Liana, I flee
through a back door, never the visible front.
I leave my parents vulnerable, but life has already
turned into nothing but an endless list of dangers.
Neighborhood Spies
Amado
El Comité is even worse,
a committee for defense of the revolution
that consists of old women who pretend
to visit, then ask to use the bathroom
just so they can peek
to see
if we
read
banned
foreign
magazines
or if we use official
government newsletters
disrespectfully
as toilet paper.
Grandparents
Amado
To escape from the gloom
of my own home, I visit my abuelos
in the next town, only thirty kilometers away
but with so few buses running
that I have to hitchhike, riding in a neighbor’s
horse-drawn wagon
that doubles as an ambulance whenever people who have cars
can’t find fuel.
What a shock it is to discover
that my rugged, cigar-smoking grandma
is almost blind
from malnutrition.
Instead of a Seeing Eye dog,
she depends on a guide pony
with a sweet expression and shaggy black mane.
Indoors, the little pony seems enormous,
even though outside it would be no more