to fight. . . .
Is my dream of peace
just an illusion
left over
from childhood?
ATTACKED
I’m in the hallway
headed toward my room.
A man in a suit follows me
from the cafeteria.
He’s not a student,
he doesn’t belong here.
I’ve always expected to die young
in this life where whole islands
can vanish.
So is this the moment when I’ll be knifed
or shot?
Instead of a gun or blade,
he wields a long black umbrella,
knocks me down, pretends to stabs me
with the sharp handle,
then leaves me unharmed
but fearful, like a bird
stunned by flying
into a window.
DAMAGED
Only
my
confidence
in
the
world’s
generosity
was
injured.
No scars.
Just an absence of belief
in kindness.
SEEKING A REFUGE
When another homeless guy walks in
and slaps me across the face, I know
that I need to stay away from the dorm.
This must be how girls
in Vietnam feel, with soldiers
charging
from the south
and north.
So I take my homework to the library,
where I spend most days and evenings,
only venturing back to the so-called
cooperative
at night
to sleep,
immersed
in a tsunami
of nightmares.
HOMEWORK
I love the huge library, with so many
quiet places where I can practice
writing phrases in Hindi, trying to master
all the dots, lines, and curlicues of Devanagari,
an alphabet shared by more than one hundred
languages.
Forty-seven letters.
Fourteen vowels.
Thirty-three consonants.
Everything dangles delicately,
like twining
vines
with shy
tendrils
that grow below lines
on the paper, instead of perching
above. . . .
The beauty
and complexity
of an unfamiliar alphabet
is a challenge,
but writing flows more freely
than pronunciation, especially
the nasal eh sound as I complete
my first sentence:
Mera naam Margarita hai.
My name is Margarita.
Aap ka kya naam hai?
What is your name?
Santre bahut ashe hai.
The oranges are very good—
Practicing feels as graceful
and challenging
as poetry.
I need to blow my breath into every hidden h,
watch the placement
of my tongue
against teeth,
control the shape of lips, until my mouth
is exhausted, then try again, persisting, never, never
giving up.
IS SEVENTEEN THE AGE OF WISHES?
Survival.
Love.
Travel.
So many dreams!
So little experience.
The only thing I really learned in high school
was how to learn.
Listen.
Wonder.
Imagine.
Dare to tackle difficult challenges.
Never expect to offer answers,
unless I’m sure I understand
the questions.
When all else fails, trust the library.
But this building at UC Berkeley is so vast
that I don’t know where to start searching
for maps and guidebooks to help me choose
future destinations.
What about Cuba?
Will a return
to my mother’s
homeland
ever
be
possible?
I would trade
decades of adulthood
for one more thrilling journey
to the lost
island
of childhood.
OVERDOSE
There’s a guy in the co-op
who always seems happy.
I’m not sure what he’s studying,
but when he invites me to a poetry reading,
I begin to wonder if we might turn out to be
more than friends.
Then he shows me his source
of so-called joy.
Pills.
He’s miserable.
He takes me to hear B. B. King sing the blues
and to watch Jimi Hendrix smash a fancy guitar
against speakers, while sparks of raging music
flare.
Pills make their way
around the concert hall,
passed from hand to hand,
my chilling memory of Short E.’s
hallucinations
making me careful
to swallow
only one
tiny
tablet.
But my date takes too many,
and soon
he’s on his way
to the emergency room,
his sanity slipping wandering so far
that for days, everyone in the cafeteria
at the co-op
speaks of him
as if he might
never return,
and they’re right.
One more mind lost
over that steep
cliff:
LSD
acid.
STILLNESS
I need to recover
from the shock
of a friend’s
overdose
outdoors.
Nature.
The redwood forest.
No people, just trees,
this height
of sky . . .
and internal
size
of silence.
THE MYSTERY OF MOVEMENT
Back to classrooms.
Obediently seated.
Trying to listen.
Struggling to learn.
Opening library books.
Nothing is constant.
Everything changes.
Earth rotates at 1,000 miles per hour,
orbits the sun at 67,000 mph,
a total of 1,600,000 miles per day,
while the solar system glides 1,300,000 mph
within the Milky Way.
So while I’m seated, I’m really traveling
32,000,000 miles each day.
How many other illusions do I experience,
along with this one that fools me into thinking
I’m capable of choosing
my own
direction?
NO MORE BOYS
I’ll never look at a guy again, not when there’s
so great a chance that he’ll die in Vietnam
or stay
and overdose.
HOMESICK HAIKU ON A FOGGY BAY AREA DAY
I miss family
sunlight, smog, heat, friends,
and waiting to leave
REBEL T.
Tall, slim, friendly,
hair styled in a huge natural,
skin halfway between his light father
and dark mother.
He chooses to call himself only black
&
nbsp; even though he’s equally white,
just as I continue thinking of myself
as half-Cuban and half-American,
identity always such a personal blend
of inheritance
and surroundings.
But T. doesn’t ask about my parents.
He assumes I’m Chicana, with ancestry
from Mexico, one of the four branches
of a growing movement at UC Berkeley—
the Third World Strike.
When Rebel T. asks me to join, I say yes,
and then we end up flirting, I’m not sure why
he chose me, when he’s so bold, and I’m too shy.
PROTEST
We stand face-to-face
with policemen
in riot gear,
shouting
as we pretend
that we don’t feel
any fear
of their helmets,
body armor,
gas masks,
weapons.
Our picket line looks like a war zone.
Maybe it is.
Third World means
neither capitalist nor communist,
but now it turns into a gathering
of young North Americans who feel left out
within US borders
Black, Chicano, Asian, Native American,
I don’t fit any of the four categories
of ethnic studies classes demanded
by strikers, but I’d be eager to sign up
for any course that teaches forgotten history.
The only problem is that our strike is a boycott.
Standing face-to-face with the riot squad
means missing tests, so I’ll flunk out
of Elementary Hindi-Urdu
Italian Renaissance Literature
Introduction to Physical Anthropology
and Freshman Comp/Rhetoric.
Devanagari is the skill I crave most.
Mastering a language requires daily practice.
Am I brave enough to sacrifice my only chance
to learn a second alphabet?
When I hold that calligraphy pen in my hand,
each foreign letter is a magical doorway,
inviting me to be pen pals with people
who live far away.
What do I crave more, rebellion
or communication?
SINGING MY OWN SECRET BLUES
I long to take midterms, finals,
and all the tests and quizzes
in between.
Yes, I need to pass all my classes,
stay in college, make any other sacrifice,
but not this one—not academic
failure.
If I tell Rebel T. the truth,
he’ll think I’m a hypocrite, studying
India and Italy, instead of our shared
US.
THE TROUBLE WITH CHE GUEVARA
Rebel T., like every other non-cubano idealist
in Berkeley, keeps a poster of Che on his wall,
but Che wasn’t just a handsome young wanderer
from Argentina; he was also a medical doctor
who joined my ancestral island’s revolution
and then chose to kill people
instead of healing them.
He shot my relatives after they fought
with him
not against him.
So when Rebel T. asks about my familia mexicana,
I correct him—cubana, and he’s instantly
so horrified
and outraged
that he calls me
una gusana.
He believes the myth
of a perfected revolution.
He assumes that I
am an enemy
of perfection.
He calls me a fanatic.
It’s not true.
I’m not counterrevolutionary.
I just don’t believe
in violence.
Gusana.
Maggot, not just worm.
Monstrous eater of dead flesh,
not a caterpillar waiting to be transformed.
From that moment on, Rebel T. refuses
to speak to me, except when he threatens
to kick me with his steel-toed boots
if I dare to cross his picket line
and return to my classes
in an effort to pass
tests.
I don’t tell him about my uncle,
because he wouldn’t listen anyway,
but when Tío Pepe was a member of Cuba’s Olympic
sharpshooting team, he had to practice with Che,
who was known to be a poor marksman.
Pepe had to pretend that his own skills
were inferior, just to make sure that he didn’t
get punished.
So I feel loyal to my uncle,
not to young North Americans
who still cling to the fantasy
of a heroic Che.
FUGITIVE
The next time I see Rebel T.
he’s a face on the TV screen,
wanted for hijacking
an airplane to Cuba.
Maybe I should have warned him
that he’ll be arrested when he arrives
on my ancestral island.
He won’t be a hero.
He won’t find acceptance.
What will it take for people
to give up their illusions?
Old Americans assume the island is hell,
while young idealists imagine
paradise.
C
It’s a grade I dread, almost worse
than a D or F, because it’s proof
that for a short while, I chose
a handsome rebel
over the treasured
opportunity
to learn Hindi.
through hidden
pathways, approaching
the classroom
a back way,
using redwood groves
that feel like serenity gardens,
instead of going anywhere near
the powerful
picket line
that defeated me.
¡MATA LA CUCA!
I keep going to class each day,
and in the evenings I serve as a volunteer tutor
for migrant farmworker children
way out in the countryside,
my transportation a local teacher
who accepts me into his eager crew
of Chicano students, even though I admit
that I’m cubana,
not mexicana.
Todos somos primos, he says.
We’re all cousins.
It’s the first time I’ve found a way to belong
in Berkeley.
The children I tutor show me how to shout
¡Mata la cuca!
each time we take our shoes off to smash
cockroaches
that scurry up and down kitchen walls
beside the table
where we drink juice
and practice reading children’s books
written
only in English.
Why aren’t there any bilingual stories,
so this whole farmworker familia
could understand
our lesson?
When I say good night, the parents walk me
to their door, asking what the word “Cuba” means—
is it a place?
Una isla del Caribe, I answer, wishing
that my mother’s Caribbean island hadn’t vanished
from so many emotional
maps.
¡HUELGA!/STRIKE!
On weekends I join a caravan of students
carrying food to farmworkers south of Fresno
in the town of Delano, headquarters for
strikers
led by César Chávez.
We sleep on the floor of a house where the rice,
beans, and vegetables we deliver are served
to thousands of filipinos and mexicanos
who can’t afford to buy the produce
they plant and harvest.
Fair wages.
Rest breaks.
Water.
Bathrooms.
Safety, sanitation, dignity,
their demands seem so reasonable,
but the grape boycott has dragged on for years.
Peaceful protests are slow, but worthwhile.
I feel certain that Chávez will succeed
in this situation where violence
might fail.
By the time I return to campus
I’ve learned two real-life lessons:
patience
faith.
A REBELLION IN REVERSE
Instead of getting stoned
with new friends at the co-op,
I read Vine Deloria Jr.,
N. Scott Momaday,
V. S. Naipaul,
Mariano Azuela,
Piri Thomas,
Octavio Paz.
Am I the only hippie
who dreads the sliding-mind effect of drugs
and finds myself
feeling high
on the poetry
of Paz?
The first thing we do every morning
in Elementary Hindi-Urdu is prayer hands,
a greeting,
namaste,
peace.
READY TO LEARN
The anthropology professor is perched on a stage
speaking to five hundred freshmen, explaining
that the definition of human has changed
now that Jane Goodall has observed chimps
making tools.
Do I need to alter my own definition
of self?
Another strike is swallowing Berkeley now,
this one called People’s Park, the attempt
to turn an empty lot into a public space,
instead of letting developers destroy
lovely green
weedy
wildflowers.
Tear gas pours down from helicopters.
Running far below, we all weep, everyone
caught in the deluge of eye-scorching
riot squad
poison.
DEFEATED
Yes, I’m ready to change my definition
of self.
No more student life, erupting
in violence.
WILDERNESS
Hastily, in the midst of People’s Park riots,