MY GRANDMOTHER’S MARE
Men with machetes chop sugarcane.
Boys on horseback show off rope tricks.
I’ll never get tired of seeing
all the things I don’t know
how to do.
The one thing I know best
is how to daydream
while watching horses,
so when Tío Darío
points to a red mare
with a round belly,
and tells me that she belongs
to his sister—my abuelita—
I ask if I can ride her.
Not yet, is the frustrating answer.
But the mare is pregnant,
and my great-uncle promises
that next summer, I can help
train the foal, which,
according to Tío Darío
will be
half mine!
I’ll be expected to share with my sister,
but in just a few short months,
each of us will be half owner
of a colt
or a filly.
When I squeeze the sun-browned hand
of my grandma’s brother, his skin feels
as hard as a tree trunk,
scarred by farmwork
and strengthened by time.
Next summer—so soon,
but my excitement makes a whole year
seem
like forever.
BREATH
Today all the cousins are riding
out to a thicket of wild mamoncillo trees,
where even the girls will be allowed to climb
up tall trunks to pick fruit, and bring back
enough for the grown-ups.
One of the older boys leads me
to a brown horse that has no saddle,
just a small, square patch of blanket
that shifts around as I climb up a fence
to make myself tall enough for a leap
onto the back of the gelding that will
carry me fast enough to catch up
with Mad and all the cousins,
who are already
so far ahead. . . .
Across a field, up a hill, and then—
so soon, before I’ve even had a chance
to prove my courage—the scrap
of blanket slips backward, sliding
off the rump of the horse, so that I
tumble into a swamp of muddy red
hoofprints.
The horse stops, turns, and gazes at me,
perplexed, his dark eyes asking why
I was foolish enough to mount him
with just a blanket, instead of a tightly
cinched saddle, and the sturdy
reassurance of stirrups.
How will I ever manage to train
a spirited young colt or filly
if I can’t even ride an old gelding?
I wipe my tears, and this time, I climb up
onto the horse’s bare back
without the help of a fence, leaving
that slippery blanket
where it belongs, half-buried
in blood-red mud, while I cling
to the thick mane with both hands,
and grasp strong brown sides
with my legs.
I can feel the hot air
steaming from horse sweat,
a smell that will always
remind me of courage.
By the time I reach distant fruit trees,
the harvest is over, all the cousins
wheeling their horses around
to ride home.
It doesn’t matter, because
with exhilarated breath
and a drumming heart,
I feel as if I’ve galloped
so far beyond anything
I’ve ever known before
that I’m already grown-up
and independent.
HASTA PRONTO/UNTIL SOON
I came to this island of relatives
with nothing but butterflies.
Now I’m leaving with secret bullets,
and a gleaming, pale yellow stalactite
that Mami brought from a cave
where Cuban Indians
hid from Spanish invaders.
I have a wild boar’s skull, too,
and the rattling jawbone
of a musical mule,
and the promise
of a horse to share
with my sister.
A filly or colt of our own,
next summer’s
treasure.
Soon.
So soon.
Strange Sky
1961–1964
THE FARAWAY GIFT
Back in the United States, I return to quiet days
of reading and schoolwork and waiting
for a letter from Abuelita.
When it arrives, a small photo
of a chestnut colt
is enclosed inside a folded sheet
of airmail paper
so delicate
that it resembles
a sliver
of moonlight.
Long legs. Bristly mane.
The red colt looks wild,
like a prehistoric horse.
Mythical. Prophetic.
An oracle colt who foresees
my future as a trainer,
adventurer,
explorer—
maybe even a winged
centaur.
Next summer,
the transformation
will begin!
Until then,
my true self
awaits me in Cuba.
UNTIL NEXT SUMMER
I’ll have to share the red colt with Mad,
but some treasures are so stunning
that fantasies about them
become private.
It’s the same way
when I think of boys,
who used to look
like nothing more
than short, boring,
grown-up men.
Now they’re beginning to seem
mysterious, even though I’m only
nine, and most boys still
ignore me.
OUT OF REACH
News from the island grows worse
each day.
Diplomats are expelled.
Relations between the two countries
I love
break down.
Dad says there won’t be a next summer
on the island.
No visit, no farm life, no horse,
no winged centaur.
No Abuelita either,
or Great-Grandma.
Mami turns into Mom, changing
before my eyes
from an ordinary person
who left her homeland
believing that she would return
every year—
to this strange, in-between-nations
exile, a lost wanderer
whose country of birth
and extended family
suddenly seem
as remote
as the moon
or Mars.
SOME THINGS SHOULD NEVER CHANGE
I know exactly when Mami became Mom,
but Dad is still Dad, painting Don Quixote,
the wistful knight who dreams of courage.
The eyes of those paintings
still look like my eyes.
How long will it be
until the two countries I love
forgive each other and move on
so that I can live on horseback,
like that wistful knight,
the dreamer?
I’m not even sure what there is to forgive.
Something about Cuba seizing ownership
of oil refineries.
It’s all so confusing.
Why should something as ugly
as oil
affect friendships between nations?
WHY DO WE HAVE TO MOVE?
I love to travel, but I hate moving.
Dad wants an art studio, and Mom
longs for a bigger garden,
so they’ve borrowed money
to buy a strange house
on a steep hill,
a precarious home
that feels dangerous,
as if it could slide
down this slope
during the next
earthquake.
Mom struggles to tame
her fierce hillside garden
of poisonous castor bean weeds
and intriguing trap-door spiders—
clever, big-eyed creatures who peer
from small, round doorways,
the entrances to dark,
hidden tunnels
deep in this dry clay soil
of our oddly wild
city home.
STRAYS
Sixth grade in a new school
means a long hike down the steep hill
on a wooden stairway that takes the place
of a street, as if I have moved
into a story about some other
century.
Mad has already started junior high,
and the girl next door calls me Spanish
and treats me like a curiosity,
so I feel completely alone
at this new school
where no one knows me.
Hardly anyone speaks to me,
until one day
on the way home,
I find a tiny calico cat
stranded beneath
the wooden stairway.
The colorful stray kitten
offers me the poetry
of her purr,
so I pick her up,
take her home,
and demand
the right
to keep her.
My parents are so distracted by news
that they say yes, even though
Dad is allergic and Mad has
a new puppy.
My kitten will have to be an outdoor cat,
but that’s fine, because I want to stay
outdoors too, playing all day
with bugs and plants
instead of people.
I have no human friends, and no way
to reach the island of my horse,
so I search for birds and blossoms
to identify, and I carry a hammer,
just in case I find rocks with crystals
or fossils to extract.
There’s something about knowing
the names and faces
of nature’s creations
that helps me feel
almost at home
in my sharply divided
shrinking
world.
MY LIBRARY LIFE
Books become my refuge.
Reading keeps me hopeful.
I fall in love with small poems,
the shorter the better—haiku
from Japan, and tiny rhymes
by Emily Dickinson.
Then I move on to long volumes
that I can’t really understand—sonnets
and plays by Shakespeare, and novels
written for adults—tales of tropical lands
with a hot, brilliant sun that shines down
on human troubles.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
from Nigeria.
Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya
from India.
I never find any books
about the beautiful green
crocodile-shaped island
that throbs
at the center of my being,
like a living creature,
half heart
and half beast.
Maybe someday
I’ll try
to write one.
APRIL 1961
Bay of Pigs.
A swampy invasion.
It’s all over the news—
an attack by CIA-trained
Cuban exiles, armed
with weapons
from the United States.
They landed only fifty miles from Trinidad.
But they’re soon defeated.
The vast United States loses,
while tiny Cuba wins, and now
both governments
are even angrier
than before.
Travel restrictions are tightened.
There’s no way we’ll ever
be able to visit the faraway half
of our family.
JUNIOR HIGH
A stay-at-home summer
of books, spiders, a kitten,
plants, rocks, and then, in September:
Washington Irving Junior High.
A school named for the author
of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Maybe that’s why I feel
like a shadow.
Seventh grade.
Eleven years old.
A bookworm-misfit
with long black braids,
childish white socks,
pointy pink glasses,
and no courage
for flirting.
It doesn’t take long to learn
that I’m ridiculous.
Girls ignore me, or tell me to cut
my old-country braids,
while boys ignore me, or taunt me
for wearing thick glasses.
So I stumble through the halls—
glassesless—enduring blurry vision
in my doomed effort
to fit in.
By the end of the first month,
I’ve chopped off my hair
and started ratting it,
thrashing the black strands
backward,
to create stiff
knots and tangles.
I shave my legs.
Experiment with eyeliner.
Mascara.
Lipstick.
A rolled-up skirt
serves as a dare, inviting
the stern girls’ vice principal
to suspend me.
She does.
with a book.
If only I could change
my timid nature,
instead of my
short skirt.
LEARNING
Once I’ve mastered the art
of pretending that I don’t care
what other kids think of me,
I start to pay attention in class,
discovering that I love
library research
for history term papers
about ancient lands.
It feels like a form
of time travel.
In English class, I write myths—
stories to explain small
scientific mysteries,
such as why does a sloth
hang upside down,
and how does a snail
feel about time?
At home, I scribble tiny poems
all over the walls of my room.
Inside those miniature verses,
I feel safe, as if I am a turtle,
and the words
are my shell.
LEARNING THE HARD WAY
I love words, but I hate numbers.
In algebra, bizarre formulas defeat me.
I don’t care why X is greater than Y.
I don’t even care if I flunk.
There’s no point working so hard,
when other kids mock me anyway,
for being smart, while feeling stupid.
So I ditch class to hide in the bathroom,
pretending to smoke.
Girls who really do smoke stare at me.
Gradually, they begin talking to me.
One by one, they appear to befriend me,
asking—will I write their term papers?
Will I do their English and history homework?
Sure.
Why not?
I’m already in trouble.
Why not hang out with troublemakers?
SOLITUDE
So I join other girls who belong
nowhere, and we roam together
at school.
But on weekends,
while they go to parties,
I walk alone to a museum
where Native American weaving
and baskets are on display.
Unsigned.
Unclaimed.
I’ll never know the names
of the women who made
all these beautiful objects
of useful art.
Does the work of a girl
always have to be
so anonymous?
OCTOBER 1962
Grim news.
Chilling news.
Terrifying.
Horrifying.
Deadly.
Just the shock and fear are enough
to make old people die of heart attacks,
while young ones have to endure
a vigil, this torment,
the slow wait
to start breathing
poisoned air.
US spy planes have photographed
Soviet Russian nuclear weapons
in Cuba.
Air-raid drills at school.
Doomsday warnings.
Rants against the island.
Hate talk.
War talk.
Sorrow.
Rage.
SOLITARY
I feel like the last survivor
of an ancient tribe,
the only girl in the world
who understands
her language.
This huge city feels too small
to hold all my feelings.
I crave a true wilderness,
where I can be alone.
Unknown.
My parents must be in shock,
because they mostly speak
to each other, and mostly
in whispers.
I imagine they must be saying things
too terrible for me and Mad
to hear.
MORE DANGEROUS AIR
Newsmen call it the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Teachers say it’s the end of the world.
At school, they instruct us to look up
and watch the Cuban-cursed sky.
Search for a streak of light.
Listen for a piercing shriek,
the whistle that will warn us
as poisonous A-bombs
zoom close.
Hide under a desk.
Pretend that furniture is enough