destined for restaurants in the city
where tourists eat like kings
while Cubans starve?
Food Riot
Liana
While Amado is out roaming on his own,
Paz and I notice women growing restless around
the ration outlet, some of them boldly pounding
wooden spoons
against enamel
pots and pans,
as they shout
¡Hambre!
demanding
groceries.
Hunger!
I shout too.
My brothers join me, bellowing
as they add the sound of stamping feet,
drumming their ragged shoes
against the sidewalk,
all of us risking arrest
for screaming such an obvious
truth.
Private
Amado
The food riot changes everything.
Police are suddenly everywhere.
City planners.
Government officials.
Every sort of bureaucrat
with the exception of those
who control food supplies.
A fence at the beach?
We’ve been banished?
An unwritten sign: Private. Exclusive.
NO LOCALS ALLOWED.
The fence needs no explanation.
We know when we’re not welcome.
When I try to jump over, a soldier
chases me away.
Endless
Liana
There is no limit to the number of beaches
we can reach by hiking, but I long for the sand
where Amado and I consumed that first
seafood stew, behaving like merfolk
from a myth, the singing dog
our only witness.
Disappearance
Liana
As if losing our beach
were not enough turmoil
now my brothers have abruptly
vanished.
In times as strange as these,
some people become invisible.
Rafters.
Prisoners.
Fugitives.
They simply disappear,
leaving families confused
and desolate, like mine,
Mami crying, Papi raging,
Paz and I ricocheting
back and forth
between sobs
and silence.
Questions about Before and After a Disappearance
Amado
Were they arrested like my brother
or did they invent a haphazard balsa
like all those people in the cave?
I’ve longed to build a raft too,
but how can I face
such an uncertain future?
Did they float away?
Will they survive?
Should we follow them
or stay and search, in case
their raft
breaks apart
and washes ashore?
What if
weeks pass
months
years?
What if
we never
know?
Search!
Liana
When family members go missing
the whole universe seems to vanish,
so we walk with Paz between us,
his nose on the ground sniffing footprints
that I can barely see through a mist
of tears and fears.
Amado
Streets, fields, beaches, caves—
just like so many other secrets,
the trail of a human
is found by a canine tracking
an aroma I can’t detect, so I have to trust
Paz as he crouches at the edge of waves,
a watery endlessness
so impossible for humans
to truly understand.
Abandoned
Liana
They’ve hurled themselves into the sea!
No farewell, note or clue, no words or embrace.
When you live on an island that you’re not
allowed to leave, each balsero who rows away
carries your wishes along with his own,
but when the rafters are your brothers
they take more, so much more
than daydreams.
The yearning they carry is solid and real,
like driftwood or sea glass, a wave-sculpted
monument
sinking.
Weary
The singing dog
The animal is exhausted.
He doesn’t know how to protect anyone
from the devastation of history.
Hunger is a weapon that forces
strong young people to flee,
and now he’s left with the sorrowful silence
of Liana’s whole family as they crouch
around a radio all night, sleepless, listening.
The Names of Survivors Ride Back to Us on Air Waves
Liana
We lean close to our old Russian radio, press our ears
against empty air, and listen, listen, listen to voices
from Florida
reciting the names
of survivors.
We listen in darkness, because this foreign
radio station
is illegal.
The name of each rafter who has reached Key West
or Miami
is a blessing
for some other family
just like ours.
We know that if weeks pass
without hearing that my brothers are safe,
we can presume they’ve drowned
but we won’t believe it, will we,
we’ll imagine an unknown shore,
some place
from a map
of an imaginary land
like the ones in my mother’s
old book of fairy tales,
a landscape with centaurs and unicorns
or children in rags who never give up
when they’re assigned some impossible
magical
task.
Vigil
Amado
Liana is unable to sleep
or smile.
Even if I felt calm enough
to go out in search of food,
she wouldn’t be peaceful enough
to eat.
As soon as the secret of her brothers’ absence
is revealed to the police, her parents will be expected
to denounce their sons for breaking the law,
just as my parents were ordered to pretend
that they were ashamed of my brother
for his courageous
protest.
What If There Were Only Two People in the World?
Liana and Amado
Our embrace
the only open spaces
are gaps
shared breath
light
air
so that for at least one brief moment, we can
rise
far
above
this sadness
and
fear.
Islanding
Amado and Liana
Anxiety all around us,
we isolate arms, eyes,
mouths
minds.
Together, we possess four legs,
like one creature
earthbound
sea-surrounded…
but we can’t bear the thought of bringing a child
into this time of hunger,
so we always
stop
short
of creating
new life.
Dogs Know How to Wait, Wait, Wait
The singing dog
The loya
l creature teaches them with his example.
Sit in one place, ears attentive, mind eager.
Expect your vigil to be rewarded with results.
Never let troubles convince you that you deserve
anything less
than absolutely devoted companionship.
Always be ready for life to bring a reunion.
Maybe Someday
Liana
Exhausting nights pass
with no news from the radio.
Daylight grows lonely, rain and sun
now identical in their ability to deliver gloom.
This effort of pretending to know nothing
about any rafters becomes excruciating
now that my brothers are the ones
who have vanished, forcing us all to act
normal, so that neighborhood spies
won’t notice
and report us.
By postponing the inevitable discovery
of the twins’ absence, we hope to give them
more time to float toward safety
without being pursued.
Maybe someday soon, I’ll be able to smile or cry
freely.
Valley of the Nightingale
Amado
Flashlights with black market batteries
instead of just sitting around waiting
to mourn or celebrate
the way we do each night when we listen
to names that radiate like eerie moonbeams
from the radio.
Glimpses of tree roots help us know
that we’re not too far from the surface.
Moisture drips down
through hidden openings.
An underground stream
leads to
bird songs.
We emerge from dark caverns
into a landscape of music and wings,
sound and color so intense that the voice
of each trilling ruiseñor
is like a wound healed
by distance, the vivid
green
of every palm frond
and grass blade
a promise—growth.
We could farm here.
No one would know.
We could hide here.
How much safer it would be
than floating across the sea
on a raft made of inner tubes
and desperate strands
of hope.
Valley of Silence
Amado
Safety is an illusion.
Any hidden refuge can be found,
and with my military service looming,
all I can offer Liana
is a shared determination
to keep our imaginations alive.
Resolve.
Invent.
Struggle.
Amar.
Love—it’s that or build our own raft
and leave
our isla of hunger
forever.
Which should we choose, land
or sea?
Why So Quiet?
Liana
Amado’s stillness
in our new valley of birdsong
is disturbing.
I imagine this is how it will be
if we ever decide to flee like my brothers,
with nothing around us but danger
and nothing inside us but fear.
Terror and wishes, the two
always seem paired in this time
of special starvation
or drowning,
an islander’s
only
choices.
Fear in Two Voices
Liana and Amado
What if if only
we float away together
like brothers like others
slow swift
above a raft below a raft
sun waves
thirst lungs
such a vague chance
arrival
survival
relief
belief
breath
What if
we stay
change
things
here
fear
if only…
… What Would We Need?
Liana
Sunscreen, fish hooks, compass, courage.
The army is voluntary for women,
but men have to serve in the reserves
until they’re fifty, so if Amado stays here
he’ll be trapped for nearly four decades,
half a lifetime, such a sacrifice!
Should he leave, could I join him, or am I
too cowardly to trade earthbound hunger
for saltwater
thirst?
He finally admits that this is the dilemma
he has been considering, the subject he’s been
so reluctant to discuss, simply because
its possibilities are as vast and risky
as the whole universe, with countless
black holes and other incomprehensible
dangers.
Simple Verse
Liana
All we really need is one windblown week
to carry us beyond dreams of returning
so that arrival is our only yearning
no matter how distant the shore we seek.
Nothing Is Simple
The singing dog
Arms and minds entwined, humans forget
that even at sea, where waves offer rhythm
and rhyme, music is more than words.
Sound, sight, scent,
all the various aspects of air
blend and tangle in a way
that demands attention.
While Liana and Amado argue
about their future
all I can do is lead them
back to the edge
of wonder.
Nothing Seems Real
Amado and Liana
caves and beach
both feel imaginary
as we follow
a branched pathway
of uncertainty
questions
are endless—
what if
and
if only
both seem like something
more permanent than choices
undecided
we linger on solid land
wondering
which to embrace—rolling waves
or each other
At Last!
Liana
Just when everything
begins to seem as impossible as happiness,
the voice of a stranger on the radio
pronounces:
Sereno del Río Alegría
Segundo del Río Alegría
They’ve washed ashore near Tampa—
far off-course if Miami was their true goal,
but who can map the wind that drives an ocean?
Who can say that two full weeks
of sunburn, hunger, horror,
uncertainty, and deadly thirst
are not worth the risk
of arrival
survival
belief
breath
food
life?
Beachcombers
Liana
No more wishing.
My brothers are safe, and even though
our family is now marked by suspicion
of counterrevolutionary sentiments,
the global competitions are ending,
athletes will leave, and if any tourists stay,
they’ll probably be fed by the government
on a private beach, in some air-conditioned
hotel restaurant
that hasn’t been invented yet.
School, homework, uniforms, tests, hunger,
our future—if
we stay—seems so grim
that with Paz beside me, I stroll along the shore
of an unfamiliar beach, searching for bits
of flotsam and jetsam that Amado and I can use
to build our own raft,
a magic carpet to float us away
from empty bellies
and hollow hopes.
Silence Is a Form of Protest
Amado
In order to keep their jobs, Liana’s parents
are forced to denounce the twins.
They have to call their sons traitors,
but Liana assures me that she won’t
do the same.
If a teacher,
secret policeman,
or neighborhood spy
demands the recitation
of some absurd statement,
she won’t insult her brothers.
The people we love are simply family,
she assures me, not complex
inexplicable
historical
ideals.
Imaginary Rafts
Liana and Amado
Mi vida, my life, my love, ours—one, not two,
and yet somehow doubled—two, not just one.
We hold hands to decide whether to walk forever
on our island of hidden caves, eyes focused
on the aerial horizon
instead of dark depths.
Or should we risk
sinking?
We need this view of distance.
Imagine traveling on a ship or airplane,
such safety, sheer freedom.
All we have in our shared hearts
is one imaginary raft—
How should we use it?
Climb aboard or set it loose,
let that alternate future
drift away?
Discovery
The singing dog
Sniffing and seeking, the dog finds a tiny baby
left alone on hot sand,
helpless beneath scorching sun,
like a patient mirror of adult misery.
She’s a startling sight,
wrapped so tightly in a blanket
that is far too warm for tropical weather,
like a bundle of dangerous secrets
in a black market vendor’s sack of contraband.
Her dark eyes gaze upward,
risking damage from the powerful blaze
of intense sunlight.