I have more questions than the FBI.
What is a Communist?
Who dreamed up blacklists?
How can any art class ever be
traitorous?
All I know about World War II is cruelty.
Will we be sent to prison camps,
like Jewish people in Germany,
or like our own friendly
Japanese American dentist,
who was locked away behind a tall fence,
in the California desert, right after Japan
bombed Pearl Harbor?
Why are Cubans suddenly spoken of
as enemies?
Not so long ago, Mami’s island
was only known for music
and sugar.
HIDDEN
Mami moves things that came from Cuba
to the garage. Letters. Magazines.
Boxes of cookies.
Inside each box, there are surprises
the size of baseball cards—bizarre,
creepy, collectible scraps of stiff paper
that show photos of tortured men,
blood-streaked, bullet-riddled, bearded
Cuban revolutionaries, just like Mami’s
cousins.
When I see her in the garage, peering
at the hideous cards, she explains
that photos are put in cookie boxes
as a form of newspaper, because
so many Cuban farmers don’t know
how to read, but anyone can understand
a picture.
REFUGE
The ugliness of war photos
and the uncertainty of TV news
join the memory of FBI questions
to make me feel like climbing into
my own secret world.
Books are enchanted. Books help me travel.
Books help me breathe.
When I climb a tree, I take a book with me.
When I walk home from school, I carry
my own poems, inside my mind,
where no one else
can reach the words
that are entirely
completely
forever
mine.
THE VISITOR
My parents are brave.
They’re not afraid
of the FBI.
Abuelita is coming to visit!
She’s going to be right here
in our house.
We don’t care if the neighbors
think Cubans are dangerous.
What will Abuelita think of this country?
Big freeways, huge bridges, an enormous
continent . . .
As soon as she arrives, she loves it all,
and she laughs when I admit that I’d rather
be living
on her island.
She teaches me how to embroider
a colorful bouquet of cotton flowers
that look just as cheerful as the garden
where Mami has planted a refuge
of her own, one that smells
like perfume, and is filled
with the music of bees.
How strange it seems
to be a normal family,
with two friendly grandmothers
living in the same city
at the same time.
Even though they can’t speak
the same language, Abuelita
and Grandma
seem to understand
each other.
NO WINGS
Passports are just paper,
but without them you can’t go
anywhere.
When the six-month limit
on el pasaporte
de abuelita
expires,
she has to return
to the island
in an airplane.
If only I had
my own
paper wings
to go with her.
REALIDAD/REALITY
Poems, travel stories, and nature
keep me hopeful.
Mad and I roam outdoors, following
the mysterious footprints of wildness—
lizards, skunks, squirrels, and birds—
that seem to carry messages
back and forth between
this dry, gravelly earth,
and the smoggy
Los Angeles sky.
Sometimes, daily life fades away,
as I wonder what my second self
would be like if we lived
on my mother’s small isla/island
instead of my father’s big ciudad/city.
It really is possible to feel
like two people
at the same time,
grandparents
memories
words
come from two
different
worlds.
Winged Summer
1960
EVENING NEWS
Before all the trouble in Cuba,
Mad and I were only allowed to watch
one television program per week—
Lassie or Disney, our choice.
Now we see the news each evening.
Explosions.
Executions.
Revenge.
Refugees are fleeing from Cuba.
Mami worries about her family,
so Dad urges her to go see them.
Take the girls, he murmurs,
let’s be realistic, this might be
your last chance.
Last chance? No!
I can’t imagine
a future
that ends. . . .
THE LAST-CHANCE TRAIN
This summer will be so strange.
Dad won’t be going with us.
Instead, he’ll travel alone,
to study art in Europe.
Even though he’s a teacher,
he likes to keep learning.
Mom lets us take our pet caterpillars,
but before we can soar
through the magical sky,
there is a long, rattling
three-day train trip
all the way to New Orleans.
Deserts and swamps speed past the train’s
vibrating window, like weird landscapes
in a science-fiction story
about eerie planets
with fiery sunsets.
I peer into my little blue suitcase,
studying the way restless caterpillars
change into patient cocoons.
The scientific part of me knows
that I shouldn’t have packed insects.
They might become farm pests
in a new place—
but who would care for them
if we left them all alone at home?
So here they are, in my luggage,
helping me understand how it feels
to slowly grow
hidden wings.
FLOWING
At the steamy train station
in New Orleans, horrifying signs
above drinking fountains
announce:
COLORED.
WHITE.
Confused, I drink out of both.
Why should it matter if a stream
of cool, refreshing water
pours
into
my
mouth
or
another?
MIDAIR
The airplane to Cuba
is nearly empty.
Are we the only people still willing
to travel in the direction of a country
that has been called troublesome
by TV newsmen?
I feel like I’m zooming
into a galaxy where everyone
is invisible, except the three of us.
Mami. Mad. Me.
An
d our tiny zoo
of patient cocoons.
So I stretch out on a whole row of seats,
even though the flight is short, and I am
too excited to sleep.
Turbulence shakes us.
Gusts of wind threaten to send
the plane crashing down
into deep blue water
between shorelines.
If we sink, will there be mermaids
riding sea stallions,
or sharks
with teeth
as sharp as knife blades?
Gazing down at scary waves,
I wonder if the traveling spirit
of midair magic
will wrap itself around me,
like the silky glue that ties
motionless cocoons
to dry branches.
FLUTTERING
At the airport in Havana, we step out
into the fierce heat of a tropical day.
Mad and I open our suitcases,
setting our pet butterflies free.
Yellow-and-black–striped
tiger swallowtails.
Dark mourning cloaks.
Orange viceroys.
My mind and heart start to flutter.
What have we done—will our delicate insects
find plenty of nectar, or will they starve
or grow homesick and migrate
all the way back
to California?
If only I understood
the language of wings.
REVOLUTIONARY
I remember the island as a quiet place
of peaceful horses and cows, but now
all I see are crowds of bearded soldiers
in dull green uniforms,
with dark machine guns
balanced
on rough shoulders.
The music blasting from every car radio
is a drumbeat assortment of army songs.
Speeches trumpet from bullhorns.
People whisper in small groups.
War talk.
Angry talk.
Men’s talk.
Nothing to do with me, or Mad, or Mami,
or—mira, look, there’s Abuelita
and my great-grandma!
WONDERSTRUCK
Dazzling flowers, cheerful trees,
colorful dresses . . .
Uniforms.
Rifles.
Beards.
While part of the stormy sky explodes
with a rumbling downpour, another area
remains peaceful and blue.
Rain and sun at the same time.
A mystery of brilliance
and darkness.
Bright parrots, festive gardens,
a rainbow . . .
Beggars.
Strangers.
Frowns.
FEELING ALMOST AT HOME
Riding in Tío Pepe’s car, we arrive
at a small house on an unpaved road
in Los Pinos, a rural edge
of La Habana/Havana
where farms and homes
dwell in mud, side by side.
The sky is still shared between sun and rain,
but now there are vultures, too, circling
like a wheel
of darkly winged
questions.
Abuelita lives in the small house,
and my great-grandma has a bigger one
across the muddy street.
So we run back and forth,
absorbing hugs, kisses, and greetings
from dozens of curious aunts, uncles,
and cousins of all ages,
people who look familiar
and strange
at the same time.
I almost feel
like a part of me
still belongs.
LOS BARBUDOS/THE BEARDED ONES
The next day is a chance to rediscover
everything I loved when I was a baby.
Umbrella-shaped mango trees,
red-flowering flame trees,
sour tamarindo, with shiny seeds
that can be strung to make necklaces
shaped like brown flowers.
When a truck filled with bearded soldiers
roars down the muddy road, I’m outdoors
with Mad and a pack of roaming children—
cousins, neighbors, strangers, friends.
The soldiers chant a song about war,
a marching song that tells a story of rage
against North Americans.
Maybe I don’t belong after all.
Not completely.
Not anymore.
TARANTULAS AND SCORPIONS
Questions twirl into my mind
like sudden gusts
of mixed-up fear.
How many soldiers died
in the revolution that ended
only a few months ago?
I imagine some must have been
Mami’s cousins—my own relatives.
But I’m afraid to ask.
I don’t want to know.
So I wander all over the farm fields
with Mad, searching for small creatures
to study, but my mind wanders too,
away from the tarantulas
and scorpions we catch—
down into deep earth,
where bones might be buried.
SECRETS
Bullets.
Coppery.
Finger-length.
Shiny.
Bullets left over from the war.
Bullets in my grandma’s garden.
Are they still powerful?
Can they explode?
All the distance between dark earth
and clear air
seems to shrink.
These bullets are mine now, no matter
how forbidden.
If I don’t tell any grown-ups
that I have them, I’ll be safe.
Won’t I?
TWO MINDS
With two bullets hidden
in the pocket of my shorts, I run
back and forth between the little house
and the bigger one.
There’s hardly ever any traffic
on the muddy road, just horsemen,
singing vendors, donkeys, mules, goats,
stray dogs, and excited children.
Some of my new friends are as skinny
as skeletons.
Others own nothing
but nicknames.
Boys race and leap noisily.
Girls watch quietly.
I’m not really sure who I am anymore,
my everyday
shy bookworm
school-year
North American self . . .
or this new person,
the rogue island girl
who feels almost
as brave
as
a
boy.
MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER’S GARDEN
With tangled green growth all around her,
la mamá de abuelita works as hard
as any farmer. Bananas. Papayas.
Sweet potatoes. Limes.
She can grow any food,
and smile at any joke,
even the rugged ones
told by men.
She has been alive for more
than ninety years.
She was born when Cuba still belonged
to Spain—when the island’s slaves
were not yet free, and wars
were like storms, sweeping
across the farmland
every few years.
Now she plucks a sleek green fruit
from a tangled tree, and offers it to me.
This lime is the best gift I’ve ever received.
Fragrance. Flavor. Color. Roundness.
My great-grandma’s hand looks as strong
a
s a garden tool, even though the skin
is papery-thin, like a daytime moon
that refuses to hide
after sunrise.
What would la mamá de abuelita say
if she knew about my two
hidden bullets?
What would Abuelita think, and Mami,
and Dad—so far away in Europe?
He was an unarmed merchant marine,
not a soldier, so wouldn’t he be
disappointed in me for keeping
such a violent
secret?
I bite into the sour sweetness
of that homegrown green lime
with reverence.
The scent is a blend
of gentleness and power,
just like my great-grandma’s
strong hand.
MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER’S HAIR
At night, when la mamá de abuelita
frees her long, wavy white hair
from tight braids,
it flows like water,
and her years
seem to vanish.
I don’t know which one of us
is time traveling.
Is she really young again,
or have I just learned how
to imagine?
STORYTELLERS
La mamá de abuelita seems easy
to please as long as I stay outdoors,
where her wild green garden
is the center
of our shared world.
But right across the street,
my sweet abuelita is terrified
by insects, lizards, frogs,
and spiders—she can only
keep me indoors
by telling stories about
her childhood on the farm.
As soon as my grandma stops talking,
I run back outside, where I listen
to wild stories told by grown-up cousins—
bearded men who wear olive-green uniforms
that scare me a lot more than
spiders.
MORE AND MORE STORIES
I find it hard to believe
that I am surviving
a whole summer
without a library
for finding
the familiar
old magic
of books.
But storytelling seems
like magic too—a new form
that is also
ancient
at the same time.
Will I ever be brave enough
to tell old-new tales
in my own way?
EL BOHÍO/THE HUT