Enchanted Air Read online

  to protect us against perilous flames.

  Radiation. Contamination. Toxic breath.

  Each air-raid drill is sheer terror,

  but some of the city kids giggle.

  They don’t believe that death

  is real.

  They’ve never touched a bullet,

  or seen a vulture, or made music

  by shaking

  the jawbone

  of a mule.

  When I hide under my frail school desk,

  my heart grows as rough and brittle

  as the slab of wood

  that fails to protect me

  from reality’s

  gloom.

  WAITING TO DIE

  Nearly two weeks of horror.

  Anger. Dread. Visions of doom.

  From October 22 to 28,

  no one speaks of anything

  but mushroom clouds.

  Atomic bombs.

  Cuba.

  Evil.

  Supermarket shelves are empty.

  Food and water are hoarded.

  Gas masks are stored in bomb shelters—

  expensive underground chambers

  that only rich people can afford.

  The rest of us will be left aboveground,

  where we’ll have to inhale

  poisoned air.

  WAITING TO UNDERSTAND

  At home, silence.

  At school, chatter.

  During visits to Dad’s relatives,

  long, complicated arguments

  about Communism.

  Capitalism.

  War.

  Peace.

  Survival.

  I escape to Aunt Marcella’s

  quiet den, where I read magazines

  and adventure books,

  instead of listening

  to grown-up

  confusion.

  WAITING TO BE RESCUED

  US Navy warships surround the island.

  Talks between leaders are the only hope.

  Secret talks.

  Mysterious talks.

  All I know is whatever I learn

  by listening as TV newsmen

  struggle to guess, trying to predict

  the horrifying

  future.

  Powerful messages must be

  passing back and forth

  between the American president

  and the Soviet premier.

  Kennedy.

  Khrushchev.

  The whole world’s safety depends

  on the words of two men

  who are enemies.

  WONDERING

  I don’t understand Communism

  or capitalism, or presidents

  or premiers, or nuclear

  radiation.

  I do know that aire means both

  spirit and air.

  Breath.

  Inhalations.

  Dangerous.

  Precious.

  How will I decide whether to breathe

  toxic sky?

  And what about an afterlife?

  Is there anything beyond this slow torment

  of waiting to die?

  IMAGINING

  My sister tells me the plots

  of horror movies, while our parents

  watch more and more news.

  I don’t know which is worse,

  The Blob and 13 Ghosts,

  or NBC and CBS.

  I can hardly stand either one.

  All I want to do is read

  The Iliad and The Odyssey,

  Aesop’s Fables, The Tempest,

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

  Ancient tales with endings

  that have meanings

  instead of doubts.

  SURVIVAL

  Diplomacy succeeds. Words win.

  Death loses.

  At the end of two weeks of secret talks

  by world leaders,

  the rest of the earth’s people can finally

  breathe.

  Nations were not destroyed.

  Cities were not devastated.

  No one died.

  It wasn’t a real war.

  Newsmen spoke of the Cold War,

  an almost-war of words,

  not a battle of bombs

  and blood.

  It’s safe to inhale now.

  No radiation.

  No poison.

  Except for the toxins

  left behind in teachers’ minds

  when they talk

  about Cuba.

  THREE SIDES TO EVERY STORY

  Two world powers in the Cold War

  make me think of the two forms

  of enchantment in fairy tales.

  One is helpful, the other dangerous.

  The first we call magic, the other

  an evil spell.

  But what about Cuba?

  If the United States is all good,

  and Soviet Russia is all bad,

  then what is the island,

  and how did it feel to be trapped,

  like Abuelita and my great-grandma,

  Tío Pepe, Tío Darío, the cousins?

  Trapped between Russian missiles

  and North American warships.

  Surrounded.

  No borders to cross.

  No way to escape.

  All around, in every direction,

  just blue sea and blue air,

  all the beauty and danger

  of natural water

  and powerful sky.

  And what about afterward?

  Will Abuelita be expected

  to think of us

  as her enemy?

  LIFE GOES ON

  Days and nights are once again

  strangely normal.

  School. Daydreams. Books.

  Wall-poems. Family.

  Then, my first junior high dance.

  Boys are shy.

  Girls are disappointed.

  Later, at my first junior high party,

  in a house where the parents

  aren’t home, hardly anyone is timid.

  Almost everyone drinks, smokes, laughs,

  and makes out.

  Except me.

  I am still only

  eleven.

  FIRST

  First kiss.

  On a pier.

  At the beach.

  He’s sixteen.

  I’m eleven.

  I could vow

  that I love him

  or claim

  that I hate him.

  All I know

  is a first kiss

  should not be

  like this.

  So I run.

  Away.

  Alone.

  Confused.

  LAST

  After I race away from that scary

  first kiss, I have no hope for love,

  or even like.

  No more childhood

  or in-between dreams.

  Nothing to think of

  as my future.

  No real self.

  Just books.

  The only goal in junior high seems to be

  finding a boyfriend, but all I have now

  are disappearing friends—older girls

  who brag about weed, meth, heroin,

  sex, and other adventures

  that have nothing

  to do with me.

  Soon, most of my new friends

  are pregnant and addicted.

  They drop out of school,

  leave their parents’ houses,

  apply for welfare.

  When I see them at the mall,

  pushing babies in strollers,

  they look old and tired.

  REBELLION

  I argue with my parents

  about nothing important.

  I cut up travel magazines,

  and cover the poem-free spaces

  on all my bedroom walls

  w
ith bright pictures

  of sunny places.

  I feel old enough to travel

  on my own,

  ready to flee

  and leave home.

  So I begin to save

  all my babysitting money

  for a journey—alone—

  to India or Fiji or Brazil,

  any place tropical

  and distant.

  INVISIBLE

  Why don’t we ever talk about Cuba

  anymore?

  No one at home or school

  seems to remember the Missile Crisis

  and the Cold War.

  The island has vanished from maps

  in travel magazines, from posters

  at travel agencies, from books

  in history class.

  No one wants to think about

  those two weeks of fear

  that almost killed us.

  Does my invisible twin still exist

  over there, the brave island girl

  who knew how to dance

  and gallop?

  SMALL JOURNEYS

  We never really travel

  as a family anymore,

  not beyond US borders.

  All our adventures are short

  and simple.

  Local mountains. Trickling streams.

  Together, we sit beside the flow

  of gentle water, listening.

  Dad wants to go back to Europe,

  to study a new art technique,

  but Mom is stateless now.

  Without any diplomatic relations

  between the United States and Cuba,

  there is no embassy or consulate.

  No place to renew her expired

  passport.

  CLOSE TO HOME

  News is all about the United States now.

  Mississippi. Memphis. Martin Luther King Jr.

  When an Alabama church is bombed

  by racist extremists, four girls are killed,

  civil rights workers are murdered,

  people all over the country

  march to demand equal rights.

  My family marches too.

  My own off-key voice rises, singing

  “We Shall Overcome,” and other songs too,

  about being like a tree standing by water,

  refusing to move.

  Soon, I think of my life as bigger and bolder

  than junior high.

  But when President Kennedy

  is assassinated, newsmen are quick

  to blame Cuba.

  GHOSTLY

  Mom stays home

  from the marches.

  What if she’s still being watched

  by the FBI?

  Could they deport her?

  She could change her country.

  Take a naturalization test.

  Answer all the questions.

  Swear allegiance to the United States.

  Become a citizen.

  Vote.

  Face facts,

  accept the loss of her right to travel

  back and forth to the land

  of her birth.

  But she won’t.

  Everything else about her island

  seems so distant

  that she clings

  to her useless

  passport—that last

  papery link.

  I’ve heard stateless people

  referred to as ghosts.

  No identification.

  No country.

  They can’t cross borders.

  But most of them are refugees,

  who have no chance to choose

  a new country.

  Is Mom the only person on earth

  who remains

  ghostly

  by choice?

  COMMUNICATION

  Cuba starts to seem real again.

  Abuelita writes letters in code,

  inventing poetic metaphors,

  to prevent the island’s censors

  from understanding her words.

  When she says that Tío Darío

  is working hard in the garden,

  Mom somehow knows that it means

  he’s been arrested, and sent

  to a prison or a forced labor camp.

  We don’t know why—did he give food

  to those counterrevolutionaries

  fighting in the mountains?

  Did they drink fresh milk

  and chew sweet sugarcane

  from emerald-green fields?

  Other news is just as shocking.

  Singing vendors are outlawed.

  Selling anything is illegal.

  No one is allowed to make a profit.

  Religions will soon be outlawed too.

  What will happen to the eternal flame

  that Abuelita ignited when Mad

  survived polio

  so long ago?

  WILDERNESS

  When another summer comes,

  we escape from the confusion

  of city life and world news

  and personal loss

  by camping.

  We hike beside waterfalls,

  climb a rounded mountain,

  and rent gentle horses

  to ride

  on wild trails.

  It’s the closest we’ve come

  in a long time

  to feeling

  like a normal

  family.

  REVIVED

  At home, Mom starts a hospital

  for abandoned and neglected

  house plants, pulling them

  out of our neighbors’

  plastic trash cans.

  She nurses the roots back to health

  with water, fertilizer,

  and hope.

  Her efforts are rewarded

  with spectacular blossoms.

  Watching her, I learn

  how to help lost things

  spring

  back to life.

  Two Wings

  1965

  A SWIRL OF CHANGES

  Some lost things can be brought back to life,

  but others have to be transformed.

  Mad and I listen to the Beatles,

  while Dad insists on opera,

  and Mom still chooses romantic

  boleros, and lively son montuno,

  the music of guajiros who ride horses

  and drive oxcarts.

  Certain ideas begin to flow backward

  from young to old.

  Mad and I teach Mom to stop

  ironing sheets, start wearing jeans,

  and give up speaking so politely

  that she can’t explain the birds

  and bees

  of teenage life.

  When she tries to teach us about dating,

  they’re rules she learned

  when she was a girl:

  Never call boys.

  Wait to be asked.

  When an invitation

  finally arrives,

  don’t act too eager.

  Why do I always feel like I’m waiting

  for my real life

  to start?

  TRAVEL PLANS

  With new words like “hippie”

  suddenly replacing “beatnik”

  and “bohemian,” Dad reclaims

  the wanderlust

  of his youth.

  England, France, Italy,

  and a whole month in Spain.

  He’s borrowed enough money

  for six months in Europe, where he

  will study a new art technique

  in Paris, and then, in the summer,

  we’ll join him

  to roam like nomads.

  But only if Mom can obtain

  special permission by visiting

  all sorts of government agencies.

  Her plans have to be precise.

  Dates and ports of entry

  for ea
ch country

  must be officially approved

  in advance.

  It’s the same

  for departures.

  No nation wants to risk

  a visit from a stateless

  Cuban ghost.

  REALITY

  Mom is nervous. Anxious. Fearful.

  She speaks to her rescued plants,

  urging brown leaves

  to turn green.

  Our new travel plans are so real,

  while memories of Cuba seem

  imaginary.

  But the island is not a fantasy.

  Poetic letters from Abuelita reveal pain.

  The farm is gone, confiscated.

  Cattle, horses, and cousins

  have vanished.

  Food is rationed.

  Cubans are hungry.

  But at school, we don’t study

  our own nation’s trade embargo

  against the island.

  Teachers no longer mention

  the travel ban or the Missile Crisis

  or statelessness

  or refugees

  or the future.

  All we learn about is ancient Rome

  and George Washington,

  as if only the distant past

  can ever be

  understood.

  MY OWN VIEW OF HISTORY

  Cold War.

  My icy

  dread.

  Cold War.

  My frozen

  hopes.

  But how can an almost-war,

  or anything else, remain frozen for long,

  on such a hot tropical island

  where even the coolest

  sea breeze

  feels

  steamy?

  SOARING

  Flying over Ireland,

  the rolling green hills

  make me think of Cuba.

  In London, I’m held spellbound

  by the gracefully arched neck

  of a white marble horse,

  carved

  and galloping.

  In France, each cathedral offers

  art lessons from Dad, but along with

  the spectacular light and dramatic

  architecture, each brilliant

  stained glass window

  contains a story.

  Desert. Savior. Angels.

  Shepherds. Pilgrims. Saints.

  Beggars. Suffering.

  Hope.

  NOMADIC

  Gargoyles.

  Castles with dungeons.

  Winding roads that lead us

  from village