In a neighbor’s dirt-floored,
palm-thatched hut,
I see how few objects
some people own.
Cots, chairs, a rough table,
and a smooth, shiny saddle.
Everything here is handmade,
except for the silvery metal bit
that spins
and gleams
in a leather bridle.
No running water.
No electricity.
No car.
Just a horse—I can see him
through the open doorway,
a dark-red bay with black legs,
and a black tail and mane.
I don’t have any way to know
if he’s swift and heroic,
but just the sight of a horse
is enough to help me feel
like my mind is soaring
in midair, all four hooves
racing across the light
and dark
sky.
WINGS
Mami is brave.
Knowing how much
I crave horsemanship skills,
she timidly asks the neighbor
if I can ride.
The neighbor is generous, and also
amused.
He can’t believe that a girl
from a country of cars
would ever care
about animals.
Mad is older, so she gets the first turn,
even though she has always claimed
that dogs are her favorite,
while I am the one who craves
amazing horses.
While my sister rides, I watch.
It looks scary.
Not easy—not smooth and graceful
like the daring chase scenes
in cowboy movies,
or those adventurous chapters
in The Black Stallion.
When Mad finally finishes galloping
all over the nearby fields and streets,
she reins the sweaty horse to a halt
and hops down casually so that I
can climb up
awkwardly.
Why can’t I be slim and athletic,
like a racehorse jockey
or my sister?
The horse endures
my nervous efforts.
I sit too far forward,
and hold the reins
too tightly, and clench
my teeth, and clutch
the saddle horn,
first at a bumpy trot,
then a rolling canter,
and eventually,
a rapid gallop
that makes all my
daydreams
feel
real!
Airborne.
And earthbound.
At the same time.
Four hooves in the sky.
Then down again.
Winged.
SINGERS AND DANCERS
That soaring ride on a borrowed horse
was my life’s dream come true.
Nothing else could ever be better,
not even the ice cream that arrives
in a mule-drawn cart.
Coconut. Pineapple. Mamey.
Tropical flavors. Colorful tastes.
When the vendor sings in praise
of the ice cream he sells,
one of Mami’s teenage cousins
goes twirling out onto the street,
swirling her waist
and shaking
her
hips.
If we stay here on the island
forever, will I grow up
courageous enough
to always ride a horse
everywhere I go, and brave enough
to dance in public every time I buy
ice cream, candy, or fruit
from one of los pregoneros,
the singing vendors of Cuba,
who walk up and down
the streets all day,
chanting
to entrance
dancing
customers?
FIESTAS/PARTIES
My great-grandmother is livelier
than any child I’ve ever met.
Her house and garden are always
bursting with uncles and cousins—
bearded men and smooth-faced ones—
soldiers, farmers, a doctor, a puppeteer,
and enough neighbors to complete
any bingo, poker, or dominó game.
Unaccustomed to parties, I sit alone
on the quiet porch,
weaving strips of palm leaf
into miniature hats that I wear
on my fingers.
If we stay in Cuba forever,
will I learn how to chatter
and laugh, like Mami’s
noisy relatives?
DOUBTS
Mami is having
some sort of problem
with her passport.
If she doesn’t receive an exit visa—
permission to leave Cuba—
and an entry visa—
permission to reenter the United States—
then we might not be allowed
to fly home in time to meet Dad
when he returns to California
at the end of summer.
Maybe this island is not
a source of courage after all,
because suddenly
Mami looks terribly anxious
instead of wonderfully brave.
LA GUAGUA/THE BUS
We ride a crowded guagua
all the way to downtown La Habana,
where there are government offices
with answers for people
who have complicated,
two-country,
mixed-family
questions.
La guagua only stops for old women,
little girls, and pretty ladies like Mami.
Men and boys have to run, leap, and grab
any part of the bus they can catch.
They have to hang on, while women
and girls
sit on the seats
and relax.
I’ve always envied boys, whose lives
seem so much more adventurous,
but the truth is that right now,
I don’t really mind having a restful place
beside a smudged window
where I can press my nose
against the glass,
gaze out,
and feel
safe.
EXPLORATION
On certain mornings, Mami grows
so busy with her passport troubles
that Mad and I forget to worry,
especially when all three of us
are invited on day trips
in Tío Pepe’s car.
A beach where flying fish
leap and soar.
A jungle with enormous flowers
that look like bright red
lobster claws.
Waterfalls and lagoons,
quiet pools of swirling
blue.
Farms, villages, towns . . .
this island is an endless adventure
as we speed from place to place
in a car. . . .
So why am I still so envious
every time I see a village child
on horseback or riding
in an oxcart?
Some of the sights
that Mami describes
as dire poverty
look like such
luxurious wealth
to a city girl
who loves
farms.
TRAVELING TO MY MOTHER’S HOMETOWN
We’re finally leaving La Habana
behind!
We’re on our way to Mami’s
hometown of Trinidad de Cuba,
on the
island’s south coast,
where my parents met.
It’s only half a day away,
but even though I’ve been there before,
it seems like a journey through centuries,
slow and dreamlike, completely old,
yet strangely new.
As we pass sugarcane fields
and banana plantations,
everything turns emerald green,
as if we’re headed toward Oz.
But there will be no wizards
in Mami’s hometown,
just more relatives, and the house
where she grew up, and the farm
where both Abuelita
and my great-grandma
were born.
The farm where I
plan to turn into
my real self.
QUIET TIMES
I feel like I’m home,
even though this peaceful town
isn’t my own.
Everything is just as I remember
from before the war.
Palm trees and bell towers rise
above rows of houses, each wall
painted its own shade of fruit hue.
Guava pink. Lime green.
Pineapple yellow.
A whole town just as quiet
and colorful
as a garden.
Blue doves flutter from nests
on the red tile roofs.
Horsemen lead goats
along cobblestone lanes.
We stay in a house
where I don’t remember all the names
of Mami’s relatives, but I do recall
the comfort of cool tile floors
on bare feet.
Immediately, old folks start scolding me
for ignoring the luxury
of shoes.
Mami explains that in Cuba
there are worms that can creep in
through the soles of your feet
and then eat their way up
to your heart.
How can any place
so peaceful
be so dangerous?
TROPICAL WINDOWS
In this centuries-old house,
each floor-to-ceiling window
is truly an opening—no glass,
just twisted wrought iron bars
that let the sea breeze flow in
like a friendly spirit.
At night, fireflies blink inside rooms,
and big, pale green luna moths float
like graceful wisps of moonlight.
In the morning, all those night creatures
vanish, replaced by cousins and neighbors
who peer in through the barred windows
to greet me and chat.
When Tío Darío brings sugarcane
from the farm, I chew the sweet stems,
absorbing a flavor that tastes
like beams of sunlight.
Is it okay to pretend
that everything will always be easy?
No passport troubles for Mami.
No courage questions for me.
No bullets.
No worms.
No death.
Just open windows, hot sunlight,
and winged creatures that fly
in and out.
LA SIESTA/THE NAP
After a big lunch of yellow rice
and black beans, all the grown-ups
fall asleep in rocking chairs.
Children are expected to rest
at siesta hour, but Mad and I know
that this is our best chance
to explore.
The central patio has fruit trees
and flowers to study, and the walls
display intriguing old black-and-white
photos of ancestors, wide-eyed pictures
that make me feel
just as drowsy
as a grown-up,
all filled up
with years.
LOST IN TRANSLATION
One day, we walk along the cobblestones
to visit a sick relative who is so old
that I’m surprised by her strength
as she pinches my arm and sighs,
¡Ay, que gordita! How chubby.
I know that I’m a tiny bit pudgy,
but being called fatty by a grown-up
makes me cry so long and so hard
that all Mami’s efforts to explain
are useless.
I don’t care if plump is a compliment
in Cuba. I can’t stand the sight of this old
skinny, sick woman, who envies anyone
healthy enough to gain weight.
Why can’t an insult contain only
one meaning, so that I can hate her,
even if she might be dying?
ESCAPE
Living in between two ways
of speaking
and hearing
makes me feel as divided
as the gaps between
languages.
At least we’re finally
on our way to the farm,
where there will be more animals
than people, and I won’t have to struggle
to understand
old folks.
As we bump along a muddy track
in Tío Darío’s battered jeep, I inhale
the scent of roadside flowers
that grow tall and weedy,
rooted in mud
the color of blood.
Red soil.
Green hills.
White cows.
Horses of so many shades
that the colors can’t be
counted.
Everything looks just as wild and free
as I’ve half-remembered
and half-imagined.
It’s as if my other self has been here
all along—
the invisible twin
who never left this island
and never
will.
GUAJIROS/FARMERS
The shower is a bucket.
Dinner is a piglet—cute and squealing,
until one of the older cousins
has to slit its throat and dig a pit
and roast the meat
in a nest of stinky garlic
and sour orange juice,
on a bed of slippery
green banana leaves,
underground,
just like
a grave.
Maybe I’m not brave enough
to be a real farm girl
after all.
SEPARATION
Mami is leaving us here.
It will be my first time spending
a whole night far away from her.
She says she’s going to see
more relatives, and visit a beach
and a beautiful cave.
I can’t help but wonder
if there’s also something mysterious
that has to be asked and answered
in one of those government offices
where powerful strangers
make decisions about the passports
of people who belong to mixed-up,
two-country, complicated
families.
EL RODEO/THE ROUNDUP
With Mami gone, Mad and I are eager
to help with farm chores,
but we don’t like helping the women,
who do nothing interesting—
just cook, sew, sweep, and wipe
the noses and bottoms of babies.
We want to ride with the boy cousins,
rounding up white cows each evening,
so that they can be milked
in the morning.
Mad is allowed to help with el rodeo,
because she’s older and a better rider,
but I have to wait my
turn.
Tío Darío promises that there will be plenty
of other summers when I can ride, rope,
and be brave, like a boy.
WAITING MY TURN
That night, I sleep
in the farmhouse,
listening to owls,
mosquitoes,
and cows.
Listening
to horses.
My future.
THE MILKING HOUR
Dawn on the farm means rising
before the sun to rush outdoors
into a corral where men and older boys
milk the cows, while cats prowl,
waiting for their chance to sip
spilled droplets.
I hold a clear glass under an udder,
letting it catch a creamy stream
of warm froth
that tastes
like moonlight.
By the end of next summer,
I’ll be older.
Maybe by then, I’ll finally be allowed
to learn the magic
of milking.
RITMO/RHYTHM
Mad has decided to catch a vulture,
the biggest bird she can find.
She is so determined, and so inventive,
that by stringing together a rickety trap
of ropes and sticks, she creates
a puzzling structure that just might
be clever enough to trick a buzzard,
once the trap’s baited with leftover pork
from supper.
Mad and I used to do everything together,
but now I need a project all my own,
so I roam the green fields,
finding bones.
The skull of a wild boar.
The jawbone of a mule.
Older cousins show me
how to shake the mule’s quijada,
to make the blunt teeth
rattle.
Guitars.
Drums.
Gourds.
Sticks.
A cow bell.
A washboard.
Pretty soon, we have
a whole orchestra.
On Cuban farms, even death
can turn into
music.
NEVER ENDING
Up there, the law does not reach,
a secretive cousin whispers,
pointing toward the jungled peaks
of tall green mountains.
The war isn’t over after all.
Some of the revolutionaries
have turned into
counterrevolutionaries.
Men who fought together
now fight against one another.
What if the battles
go on and on
forever?