Cuban in America,
you know how my great grandma stung her fingers on lime when the screen door muscled open.
You know the grip when they tell her,
“Your husband is under arrest for conspiracy against the government.”
Your grandpa is also 6.
He watches his father torn from a wicker chair;
this is the last he will be seen for 30 years.
His mother shudders every time his children ask why he is gone;
they are stuffed with mango skin and salt, she is hoping they won’t leak,
hoping the Cuban government doesn’t strip more of her veins,
maybe he will come back. Maybe he will come back.
We know the price they paid for knowledge is twice the wrath they received.
When he is released, my great grandfather is only eyelashes.
His children run deep to him and he does not know. But you do.
Ten days later, he is found hung from the kitchen ceiling,
limes and mangos and salt and his children spilled underneath.
Dear Cuban in America
You and I have spent summer after salt-soaked summer,
staring at our grandfathers as we eat breakfast
you know his pan cubano sprayed with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter,
the lemon colored oil creeping into the holes in the bread.
Corn flakes, heavy with whole milk we were never allowed to have at home.
we were seven and waiting for him to say anything,
he was seventy, waiting for us to do the same.
We are too shy and our grandfathers are not forgiving.
When we does speak, it is too thick,
so we sit quiet peeling mangos of their acidic skin and listen to his accent tumble by.
When our Abuelos left Cuba, they were 30,
they ran to the U.S. leaving windy promises they wouldn’t stay long.
They were beautiful and crumbled,
and Castro never let them come back.
My Abuelo stumbles on words and pieces of mango
and tells me about his father, his donkey, his ache streaked sister.
He hasn’t been home for 50 years.
Our relatives shatter to this country and he knows what they have left behind.
Dear Cuban American,
I do not know why I say we
Our abuelo ‘s are more Cuban than I can ever try to be.
When I try and speak, the language is molasses
I grasp at a country I say I love.
I am no Cuban American the way you are.
I never got to feel the way a street crumbles under dictatorship,
never taste arroz con pollo the way you had,
never walked with the most beautiful girl in *****,
never clasped a lime stained kitchen.
I didn’t know how much my Abuelo wanted to see the Cuba he left etched onto my palms.
How much he wanted to hear me sing guantanamera
You two know the history of the island,
the red stars and blue stripes,
the shackles and homes falling underneath palm trees bled out.
Cuban in America,
the years on our grandfather’s wrists grow plenty.
I realize the chances for me to become a true Cuban are slipped.
Now our Abuelo’s sweatshirts are stained with salt and whole milk
they fall asleep on benches and trip in grocery stores.
Our moments are hung from the kitchen ceiling,
milk, and salt, and mangos, and limes, all spilling.