Enchanted Air Read online

  I have more questions than the FBI.

  What is a Communist?

  Who dreamed up blacklists?

  How can any art class ever be

  traitorous?

  All I know about World War II is cruelty.

  Will we be sent to prison camps,

  like Jewish people in Germany,

  or like our own friendly

  Japanese American dentist,

  who was locked away behind a tall fence,

  in the California desert, right after Japan

  bombed Pearl Harbor?

  Why are Cubans suddenly spoken of

  as enemies?

  Not so long ago, Mami’s island

  was only known for music

  and sugar.

  HIDDEN

  Mami moves things that came from Cuba

  to the garage. Letters. Magazines.

  Boxes of cookies.

  Inside each box, there are surprises

  the size of baseball cards—bizarre,

  creepy, collectible scraps of stiff paper

  that show photos of tortured men,

  blood-streaked, bullet-riddled, bearded

  Cuban revolutionaries, just like Mami’s

  cousins.

  When I see her in the garage, peering

  at the hideous cards, she explains

  that photos are put in cookie boxes

  as a form of newspaper, because

  so many Cuban farmers don’t know

  how to read, but anyone can understand

  a picture.

  REFUGE

  The ugliness of war photos

  and the uncertainty of TV news

  join the memory of FBI questions

  to make me feel like climbing into

  my own secret world.

  Books are enchanted. Books help me travel.

  Books help me breathe.

  When I climb a tree, I take a book with me.

  When I walk home from school, I carry

  my own poems, inside my mind,

  where no one else

  can reach the words

  that are entirely

  completely

  forever

  mine.

  THE VISITOR

  My parents are brave.

  They’re not afraid

  of the FBI.

  Abuelita is coming to visit!

  She’s going to be right here

  in our house.

  We don’t care if the neighbors

  think Cubans are dangerous.

  What will Abuelita think of this country?

  Big freeways, huge bridges, an enormous

  continent . . .

  As soon as she arrives, she loves it all,

  and she laughs when I admit that I’d rather

  be living

  on her island.

  She teaches me how to embroider

  a colorful bouquet of cotton flowers

  that look just as cheerful as the garden

  where Mami has planted a refuge

  of her own, one that smells

  like perfume, and is filled

  with the music of bees.

  How strange it seems

  to be a normal family,

  with two friendly grandmothers

  living in the same city

  at the same time.

  Even though they can’t speak

  the same language, Abuelita

  and Grandma

  seem to understand

  each other.

  NO WINGS

  Passports are just paper,

  but without them you can’t go

  anywhere.

  When the six-month limit

  on el pasaporte

  de abuelita

  expires,

  she has to return

  to the island

  in an airplane.

  If only I had

  my own

  paper wings

  to go with her.

  REALIDAD/REALITY

  Poems, travel stories, and nature

  keep me hopeful.

  Mad and I roam outdoors, following

  the mysterious footprints of wildness—

  lizards, skunks, squirrels, and birds—

  that seem to carry messages

  back and forth between

  this dry, gravelly earth,

  and the smoggy

  Los Angeles sky.

  Sometimes, daily life fades away,

  as I wonder what my second self

  would be like if we lived

  on my mother’s small isla/island

  instead of my father’s big ciudad/city.

  It really is possible to feel

  like two people

  at the same time,

  when your parents

  grandparents

  memories

  words

  come from two

  different

  worlds.

  Winged Summer

  1960

  EVENING NEWS

  Before all the trouble in Cuba,

  Mad and I were only allowed to watch

  one television program per week—

  Lassie or Disney, our choice.

  Now we see the news each evening.

  Explosions.

  Executions.

  Revenge.

  Refugees are fleeing from Cuba.

  Mami worries about her family,

  so Dad urges her to go see them.

  Take the girls, he murmurs,

  let’s be realistic, this might be

  your last chance.

  Last chance? No!

  I can’t imagine

  a future

  that ends. . . .

  THE LAST-CHANCE TRAIN

  This summer will be so strange.

  Dad won’t be going with us.

  Instead, he’ll travel alone,

  to study art in Europe.

  Even though he’s a teacher,

  he likes to keep learning.

  Mom lets us take our pet caterpillars,

  but before we can soar

  through the magical sky,

  there is a long, rattling

  three-day train trip

  all the way to New Orleans.

  Deserts and swamps speed past the train’s

  vibrating window, like weird landscapes

  in a science-fiction story

  about eerie planets

  with fiery sunsets.

  I peer into my little blue suitcase,

  studying the way restless caterpillars

  change into patient cocoons.

  The scientific part of me knows

  that I shouldn’t have packed insects.

  They might become farm pests

  in a new place—

  but who would care for them

  if we left them all alone at home?

  So here they are, in my luggage,

  helping me understand how it feels

  to slowly grow

  hidden wings.

  FLOWING

  At the steamy train station

  in New Orleans, horrifying signs

  above drinking fountains

  announce:

  COLORED.

  WHITE.

  Confused, I drink out of both.

  Why should it matter if a stream

  of cool, refreshing water

  pours

  into

  my

  mouth

  or

  another?

  MIDAIR

  The airplane to Cuba

  is nearly empty.

  Are we the only people still willing

  to travel in the direction of a country

  that has been called troublesome

  by TV newsmen?

  I feel like I’m zooming

  into a galaxy where everyone

  is invisible, except the three of us.

  Mami. Mad. Me.

  An
d our tiny zoo

  of patient cocoons.

  So I stretch out on a whole row of seats,

  even though the flight is short, and I am

  too excited to sleep.

  Turbulence shakes us.

  Gusts of wind threaten to send

  the plane crashing down

  into deep blue water

  between shorelines.

  If we sink, will there be mermaids

  riding sea stallions,

  or sharks

  with teeth

  as sharp as knife blades?

  Gazing down at scary waves,

  I wonder if the traveling spirit

  of midair magic

  will wrap itself around me,

  like the silky glue that ties

  motionless cocoons

  to dry branches.

  FLUTTERING

  At the airport in Havana, we step out

  into the fierce heat of a tropical day.

  Mad and I open our suitcases,

  setting our pet butterflies free.

  Yellow-and-black–striped

  tiger swallowtails.

  Dark mourning cloaks.

  Orange viceroys.

  My mind and heart start to flutter.

  What have we done—will our delicate insects

  find plenty of nectar, or will they starve

  or grow homesick and migrate

  all the way back

  to California?

  If only I understood

  the language of wings.

  REVOLUTIONARY

  I remember the island as a quiet place

  of peaceful horses and cows, but now

  all I see are crowds of bearded soldiers

  in dull green uniforms,

  with dark machine guns

  balanced

  on rough shoulders.

  The music blasting from every car radio

  is a drumbeat assortment of army songs.

  Speeches trumpet from bullhorns.

  People whisper in small groups.

  War talk.

  Angry talk.

  Men’s talk.

  Nothing to do with me, or Mad, or Mami,

  or—mira, look, there’s Abuelita

  and my great-grandma!

  WONDERSTRUCK

  Dazzling flowers, cheerful trees,

  colorful dresses . . .

  Uniforms.

  Rifles.

  Beards.

  While part of the stormy sky explodes

  with a rumbling downpour, another area

  remains peaceful and blue.

  Rain and sun at the same time.

  A mystery of brilliance

  and darkness.

  Bright parrots, festive gardens,

  a rainbow . . .

  Beggars.

  Strangers.

  Frowns.

  FEELING ALMOST AT HOME

  Riding in Tío Pepe’s car, we arrive

  at a small house on an unpaved road

  in Los Pinos, a rural edge

  of La Habana/Havana

  where farms and homes

  dwell in mud, side by side.

  The sky is still shared between sun and rain,

  but now there are vultures, too, circling

  like a wheel

  of darkly winged

  questions.

  Abuelita lives in the small house,

  and my great-grandma has a bigger one

  across the muddy street.

  So we run back and forth,

  absorbing hugs, kisses, and greetings

  from dozens of curious aunts, uncles,

  and cousins of all ages,

  people who look familiar

  and strange

  at the same time.

  I almost feel

  like a part of me

  still belongs.

  LOS BARBUDOS/THE BEARDED ONES

  The next day is a chance to rediscover

  everything I loved when I was a baby.

  Umbrella-shaped mango trees,

  red-flowering flame trees,

  sour tamarindo, with shiny seeds

  that can be strung to make necklaces

  shaped like brown flowers.

  When a truck filled with bearded soldiers

  roars down the muddy road, I’m outdoors

  with Mad and a pack of roaming children—

  cousins, neighbors, strangers, friends.

  The soldiers chant a song about war,

  a marching song that tells a story of rage

  against North Americans.

  Maybe I don’t belong after all.

  Not completely.

  Not anymore.

  TARANTULAS AND SCORPIONS

  Questions twirl into my mind

  like sudden gusts

  of mixed-up fear.

  How many soldiers died

  in the revolution that ended

  only a few months ago?

  I imagine some must have been

  Mami’s cousins—my own relatives.

  But I’m afraid to ask.

  I don’t want to know.

  So I wander all over the farm fields

  with Mad, searching for small creatures

  to study, but my mind wanders too,

  away from the tarantulas

  and scorpions we catch—

  down into deep earth,

  where bones might be buried.

  SECRETS

  Bullets.

  Coppery.

  Finger-length.

  Shiny.

  Bullets left over from the war.

  Bullets in my grandma’s garden.

  Are they still powerful?

  Can they explode?

  All the distance between dark earth

  and clear air

  seems to shrink.

  These bullets are mine now, no matter

  how forbidden.

  If I don’t tell any grown-ups

  that I have them, I’ll be safe.

  Won’t I?

  TWO MINDS

  With two bullets hidden

  in the pocket of my shorts, I run

  back and forth between the little house

  and the bigger one.

  There’s hardly ever any traffic

  on the muddy road, just horsemen,

  singing vendors, donkeys, mules, goats,

  stray dogs, and excited children.

  Some of my new friends are as skinny

  as skeletons.

  Others own nothing

  but nicknames.

  Boys race and leap noisily.

  Girls watch quietly.

  I’m not really sure who I am anymore,

  my everyday

  shy bookworm

  school-year

  North American self . . .

  or this new person,

  the rogue island girl

  who feels almost

  as brave

  as

  a

  boy.

  MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER’S GARDEN

  With tangled green growth all around her,

  la mamá de abuelita works as hard

  as any farmer. Bananas. Papayas.

  Sweet potatoes. Limes.

  She can grow any food,

  and smile at any joke,

  even the rugged ones

  told by men.

  She has been alive for more

  than ninety years.

  She was born when Cuba still belonged

  to Spain—when the island’s slaves

  were not yet free, and wars

  were like storms, sweeping

  across the farmland

  every few years.

  Now she plucks a sleek green fruit

  from a tangled tree, and offers it to me.

  This lime is the best gift I’ve ever received.

  Fragrance. Flavor. Color. Roundness.

  My great-grandma’s hand looks as strong

  a
s a garden tool, even though the skin

  is papery-thin, like a daytime moon

  that refuses to hide

  after sunrise.

  What would la mamá de abuelita say

  if she knew about my two

  hidden bullets?

  What would Abuelita think, and Mami,

  and Dad—so far away in Europe?

  He was an unarmed merchant marine,

  not a soldier, so wouldn’t he be

  disappointed in me for keeping

  such a violent

  secret?

  I bite into the sour sweetness

  of that homegrown green lime

  with reverence.

  The scent is a blend

  of gentleness and power,

  just like my great-grandma’s

  strong hand.

  MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER’S HAIR

  At night, when la mamá de abuelita

  frees her long, wavy white hair

  from tight braids,

  it flows like water,

  and her years

  seem to vanish.

  I don’t know which one of us

  is time traveling.

  Is she really young again,

  or have I just learned how

  to imagine?

  STORYTELLERS

  La mamá de abuelita seems easy

  to please as long as I stay outdoors,

  where her wild green garden

  is the center

  of our shared world.

  But right across the street,

  my sweet abuelita is terrified

  by insects, lizards, frogs,

  and spiders—she can only

  keep me indoors

  by telling stories about

  her childhood on the farm.

  As soon as my grandma stops talking,

  I run back outside, where I listen

  to wild stories told by grown-up cousins—

  bearded men who wear olive-green uniforms

  that scare me a lot more than

  spiders.

  MORE AND MORE STORIES

  I find it hard to believe

  that I am surviving

  a whole summer

  without a library

  for finding

  the familiar

  old magic

  of books.

  But storytelling seems

  like magic too—a new form

  that is also

  ancient

  at the same time.

  Will I ever be brave enough

  to tell old-new tales

  in my own way?

  EL BOHÍO/THE HUT