Moths nest on my shoulders.
No one knows that I’m an animal
instead of a tree limb.
Time
is my friend:
I can wait for weeks
just to move; I can eat so slowly,
just one delicious leaf
at a time.
A TREE VIPER
GREEN SNAKE OR GREEN PLANT?
j
u
s
t
a
v
i
n
e
u
n
t
i
l
I
BITE
THE TREES
SHRINKING
It never seemed as if anything
could make our huge trunks
smaller
but men
with machines and explosives
have made some of us
vanish
leaving the others
lonely
for
time
more time
sun, soil, growth,
while some of us shrink, others survive
and grow, grow, grow . . .
MATEO
NOSTALGIA
With no way to cook my own food,
I add a single precious strand
of the herb girl’s golden saffron
to my dreary
Serpent Cut lunch
of plain white rice.
The aroma helps me remember
the best part of my past,
when Mami was still alive
and Papi knew the difference
between wartime
and family life.
Each whiff of scented spice
smells like a memory
of happiness.
MATEO
SLEEP
After another agonizing day of bending
to lift ponderous train tracks,
my back feels as twisted
as a tangled vine in the jungle.
Spine-shredding
arm-wrenching
spirit-crushing
labor
makes me wish
for any job that would feel
like an accomplishment
instead of torture.
In the evening, I listen to howlers
and I dream of Anita, creating
a night world that makes me
smile.
Later, nightmares send my hands
thrashing through the mosquito net
that hangs above my cot . . .
Biting insects get in through the holes,
leaving me itchy and bleeding
and sad.
HENRY
SLEEPLESS
Troubled by wishes, I get up
and step outside, where I listen
to rain, rain, gruesome rain,
the night sky as thick
and slick as a waterfall,
the drumming of thunder
so furious that it makes
sleepless monkeys
howl . . .
Long after the noisy noisy downpour
is over, I can still hear raindrops slipping
down from one layer of leaves to another,
until finally they settle beside my feet
in swampy mud,
where singing frogs hop
and squirming leeches cling
to my ankles.
If only I could find some way
to take a steamship home
and start my life over.
I’ve never had a chance
to go to school. If I send enough
silver home, will my little brothers
and sisters be able to study?
Maybe one of them will even
grow up to be
or a nurse.
That would make all my Serpent Cut
suffering
worthwhile.
MATEO
DAYDREAMS
Bend.
Lift.
Heave.
Grunt.
Ache.
Howl!
Escape from the pain
by imagining
the friendly herb girl
with her necklace
of feathers
and wings . . .
HENRY
HATRED
I’m so sick of rain, mud, shovels,
and that SILVER payroll window!
I hate seeing the bloodied face
of the loser boy at payday fights.
Why does he keep trying to beat me?
He never wins any share of the bets.
Can it be that maybe he’s exactly
like me, just feeling a little bit crazy
from all this bitter bitter
Panama Craze
disappointment?
MATEO
POSSIBILITIES
On fight nights, I always meet Anita,
and while we visit, she gives me a balm
of wild herbs for my bruises.
She tries to talk me out of violence,
but when I point out her machete,
she insists it’s her only protection
against poisonous snakes
and mean men.
I can’t imagine being brave
if I were a girl, alone in the forest . . .
but when I tell Anita my thoughts,
she laughs and says girls are just
like boys—all they want
is fairness
and respect.
ANITA
MAYBE
I know I’m too young to really flirt,
but sometimes I do enjoy talking
to the cubano boy
instead of working . . .
and sometimes, on Sundays, I love
hearing the Jamaicans who sing
in makeshift Silver Town churches,
instead of listening
only to birds, frogs, monkeys,
and dreams . . .
so maybe I won’t always stay
quite so far away from human
possibilities.
MATEO
CAUTION
On free Sundays, some men doze,
while others pray, or drink, or moan
about the heat, rain, mosquitoes, biting ants,
stinging wasps, ticks, tarantulas, scorpions,
snakes, sore muscles, bone aches,
brain boredom,
and loneliness.
In an effort to get away from anarchists
who expect me to carry their newsletters
all over the jungle, I roam alone
like a wild creature, stashing
the pamphlets in hollow logs
and old tractors
instead of delivering them
to dangerous strangers.
ANITA
A MYSTERY
I follow Mateo, without letting him
see me.
I know how to hide. I’ve been sneaky
all my life. It’s the only way to survive
in a land of hunters
and hunted.
I watch as he tucks a stack of papers into
the rusty metal husks of huge machines
abandoned by France many years ago,
after that nation tried and failed to dig
all the way across
my forest.
I try to imagine Mateo’s island.
Are there sights that he treasures
the same way I love and need
the wild height
of these trees?
I have seen so many skillful little sketches
that Mateo makes in mud with a stick.
There are people, animals, birds,
and nameless shapes that could be
winged spirits—sometimes it’s not easy
to tell the d
ifference when you live
in a place of transformations, where
caterpillars emerge as butterflies,
tadpoles change into frogs,
and tiny seeds grow
until they reach
the comforting size
of whispery
forest giants.
When Mateo is gone, I creep
toward the tractors and peek
at the hidden papers, expecting
drawings or paintings or a diary,
but all I find is mysterious writing
in a language I can’t
understand.
HENRY
FREEDOM
Other diggers tell me that if I ever see
a gold-colored frog, I should catch it
and care for it, until the frog rewards me
by turning into real gold.
So one morning I reach down and pull
a black-speckled, bright yellow frog
out of the mud. I can feel its tiny heart
pulsing
in my hand.
Then I let it go, hoping that if the legend
is true and golden frogs really can
turn into valuable valuable jewels,
then maybe I’ll find this one again
someday, when it’s made out of metal,
and I won’t feel like a warden
guarding a captive.
MATEO
FEVERISH
A fury of blazing sun turns to sweat.
A chill in the evening follows. I lie awake
in my soggy clothes, wishing for a blanket
or a clean shirt, any small source
of comfort . . .
Shivering, I listen to the music of tree frogs,
crickets, night monkeys, and screech owls,
a whole orchestra of predators
and prey.
Why don’t all those singing animals
fall silent? Can’t they hear that hidden
jaguar’s silence?
This fever feels like a hungry beast too.
How long will its flame fangs take
to devour me?
ANITA
FLOODS
At the height of the rainy season,
forest trails turn into swamps,
so I row from village to village
in an old dugout canoe
so moist that mosses and ferns
sprout from cracks
in the splintered wood.
I can’t let something as common as water
keep me from working to help sick people
by brewing teas and potions from herbs
that I must keep finding and gathering
right here in my vast garden, this forest,
my world of pain
and cures . . .
As I glide past huts propped on stilts,
children smile and wave
from beneath big leaves
that their mothers call
“poor man’s umbrellas.”
When the furious rain pounds down
so hard and fast that my little canoe
starts to fill up with water,
I try to scoop it out
with a coconut shell,
but the flow is too swift,
so I have to give up
and drift back toward my home,
a jungle inn called La Cubana María,
after my adoptive grandma, an old
island herb woman
who has cared for me
since I was tiny.
She is the one who still teaches me
how to heal every strange
human sorrow
except
my own.
Is it foolish for me to wish
that someday I might meet
my true mother?
OLD MARIA
from the island of Cuba
MY CLINIC-INN
I was here long before the Americans,
before the French, even before the bold
adventurers from many lands who flocked
across Panamá back when it still belonged
to Colombia, and greedy crowds
from every nation on earth
were making their way
to the California gold rush.
There were no doctors in this forest,
so when a traveler fell ill, he came here,
seeking cures from the power of plants.
By the time an abandoned baby was found
in one of the rooms, I was old and tired,
but caring for little Anita gave me energy,
so I held her, and fed her, and taught her
the art of offering
hope.
ANITA
DANGER
There is nothing I love more
than listening to la vieja María
tell tales
of long ago.
If I survived without a mother, then
maybe others will survive now, when
each day brings news of death.
As the Serpent Cut grows deeper,
rain softens the mud and landslides
swallow laborers. Wheels of vultures
circle high above the pit, eager to fill
their winged hunger.
I try to talk Mateo into running away
from his contract, but his fear of policemen
is greater than his fear
of landslides.
MATEO
SLIDING
When my crew is assigned to a slope
called la Cucaracha—“the Cockroach”—
we all feel doomed.
Dynamite blasts send
giant hissing insects into the air
around our heads,
while pit viper snakes
slither close to our boots.
Each explosion is more risky than the last.
Layers of mud between layers of stone
are shoveled into dirt trains by Jamaicans,
while we bend,
heave,
lift,
groan,
pray,
and slip
down, down, down,
shoved
by a mudslide,
pushed
toward death.
HENRY
BURIED
Mud all around me
beneath and above
mud that boils
roars
and rumbles
crushes my breath
steals my voice
mud that covers
the future
and buries me
in gloom.
MATEO
DESPERATE
Every survivor leaps to help,
all of us digging side by side,
silver and gold men
equally grateful
to be alive!
Our digging is urgent
but careful,
just in case any buried men
might be injured by our frantic,
trembling, pounding
shovels.
HENRY
RESCUED
Face
to
face
only a thin sheet of mud
between us
hands
reach for my arms
as my
voice returns
to thank the loser boy
who is right here
so close
his familiar eyes suddenly
the eyes
of a friend.
MATEO
ARRESTED
After the landslide, somehow I expect
a few days off—a chance to feel relieved
that I survived and grateful that I helped
rescue the Jamaican boxer—
but this Cucaracha slope
never gives me a rest.
I have to keep working, and wishing,
and even
though I haven’t hidden
any anarchist pamphlets lately,
one night, during a lightning storm,
police break into the boxcar and awaken us
with clubs, beating us, then dragging us
away to prison.
MATEO
QUESTIONED
During days as dark as night,
I’m chained in a windowless cell.
No light.
No air.
Just questions.
And fists.
During days as lonely as nights,
I grow more anxious
for answers.
ANITA
KICKERS
The prison is called Renacer—“Rebirth”—
because men who go in big and strong
are said to come out as weak
and helpless
as babies.