AMÍLCAR PETER SANATAN
My Mother Folded My Father’s Guayaberas
Years before I was born,
my father told my mother –
then comrade-woman –
he’d come back
from Georgetown.
When the time was right,
he was dishonest about itineraries.
But as long as the bodies
never turned up on the Fort –
a man renamed to cover his eyes
from the trauma of losing his father –
my father was on a frontline.
Four years after I was born,
I thought my father was
a cologne salesman.
The smell of his suitcase
and sternum
revealed his love
for Federation;
his handwritten poems
in the top left pocket
of his shirt –
he could barely keep
secret.
When I was old enough
to learn the function
of hangars, and reach them,
and still young enough
to ask my mother
why it snowed
in Caracas, Tehran,
in Havana, Bahía
de Cochinos;
when I was too young
to understand
the sunken face
of my old man
clean-shaved
and wearing a tie –
I looked forward
to his absence.
When he disciplined us
with vexed instructions,
cutting short
our time
to watch cable television.
I played in his wardrobe
when he was gone.
The first time
I buttoned my father’s guayabera
over me. I came out
in the living room;
my mother slumped
in her chair.
She gave me
the same look
she had on her face
at airport ARRIVALS.
I’d like much
to talk about sewing
and my mother’s thread
until I die.
But I swear
the man I am
in this shirt
eats the spaces
of the silence
and sounds
of Gate Announcements.
The years thread
evenly, appear to look
that way, and fractures
of family life show up
in inevitable rips
I could live with.
I can’t live
with three-piece suits.
I’ve worn patrimony
on the sleeve
for decades
to my own detriment.
My brothers
ask for my wife,
they ask for more
photographs
with children
at home.
When I was abroad,
my mother wrote
to me:
How is the cold?
When do you come back?
I have more guayaberas folded for you
when you are ready.
Caracas, 2026
Lone stars.
You and I
were not reliving bad dreams
about earthquakes
in bed.
The ash
from the other side
of the world
fell across our eyes.
God,
it was raining fire.
We knew the palaces
and commanders were shaking
as beggars of dawn
professed their joy
and softer despair.
The spectrum of tears
are no less material.
Who is next
in this mission?
It’s been months;
we’ve pretended a desert strip
for the dead
does not exist.
Leaders
have gone to conclusions,
bombing sand.
Children practice
pedagogies in these theatres,
injured dolls,
infinite cruelties.
Aunt Diana’s sound
of crying
was a woman searching
for herself
in thin pages of scripture.
Count the dead.
Say a prayer
for the badly wounded.
How could I forgive
my country,
myself,
going back to sleep?
Late Stage Revolutions
Intermittently
sovereign
on the edge
of Empire.
Perhaps
we are a cluster
of thorns
or worse,
Backyard botanica
hung up
on entropy.
I’m tuned in
to co-opted skulls
on podiums
and their Washington articulacy –
making clear
as day-time strikes
on fishing boats,
none of us
have been able
to point
to a country
as our own
on maps we carry
in our hands.
Headlines flare,
men straggle
holding gazettes
and bottles of
Old Overholt,
readying to go
above and beyond
and shame
Sierra Maestra
to their knees.
I cannot
bring God
to our defense.
I’ve only brought
wonder;
Black halos
and History’s grief
to a rally.
My elder brother’s
name is Fidel.
I’m told
to “Never mind.”
I do,
because in the space
between a breath
and his name,
the largest arms
shudder
into existence
and claim
me.
