YASMINA CABRERA
I
When I was four years old a golden sun
Hung from my father’s throat
With my pinky I counted each ray
No one else could tell but
When it winked at me
I knew the truth of who he was
Helios come down from his chariot
To watch me grow into myself
This was when he split sugarcane
In half and I would eat it from his hands
This was when the boys would sell water in small bags
So that if you were thirsty you would have to drink
Their fingerprints too
This was when my mother’s hair hung low
Almost at her feet
Like a jet black train that announced her return
This was when my father cleaned out the closet
Tall mahogany doors
And found a poem written to her by a man we did not know
My father laughed
Like the sun does every time a candle is lit
My mother blushed
Well I was four years old I did not know
That power is a dance
II
On the day that my father was born
He threw up his mother’s milk
And would not open his eyes
His mother trembled as she held him
Because she knew he would not live
This was when glances could poison
And you could not know which of the ladies
You went to church with prayed
That you would die
Before you took your first breath
This is now
For I was born with his mother’s nose, her wide forehead,
and her unforgiving tongue
Like her, my memory is long
And that which you wish dead
Only grows again and more stubborn
On the day that my father almost died
It was the first day that he had been alive
His mother took him to a medicine woman
Who cleansed his little body
With smoke, and ashes, and his mother’s sweat
“If he lives past noon” she said
“Bring him to me, and we will cleanse him again.”
This was when
I exhaled
Over a drop of the oil they used to anoint his head
III
And when my mother was born
Her father would only speak in morse code
Dots and slashes that cut
With precision
He raised me too but
This was after half his stomach had been removed
Maybe I was the beginning of his redemption
Though really it was because he only had half his guts
And my mother had grown tall and cold and had flown
Halfway across the world with that glinting black curtain
That surrounds her
The fear of her was strong
She could leave her infant in his home
And know she would not be touched
But part of it had to have been love
He kissed a lizard on the mouth
So that I would not cry
He used a machete
To shave a coconut
He hacked it open
And gave me its water to drink
