Tropical Secrets Read Online Free

on her stilts.
I think of Black Forest trees
swayed by wind.
    Â 
    Each time I picture my parents
dancing a waltz, or my grandfather
hopping, clowning around,
    I feel like two people—
the young man who makes music
out of odds and ends
of wood and bone
    Â 
    and this other person,
the boy lost somewhere
between the torment of memory
and a few fragile shards
of hope.

    Â 
PALOMA
    Â 
    The streets are decorated
with strands of colored paper
cut into the shapes
of lightbulbs and flags.
    Â 
    I dance on stilts,
smiling down at my feet
far below—
like Alicita in Wonderland
when she was tall.
    Â 
    I feel like many people—
the little girl who had a mother
and the one who hides with doves
and the one who obeys her father
    Â 
    and this once-a-year
young woman
who knows how to dance
in midair.

    Â 
PALOMA
    Â 
    Carnival only lasts
for a few days and nights,
and then I will need
to dream up new ways
to make money for helping
the sad people
who still come
on more and more ships,
even though that one ship
was sent away
by my father,
El Gordo, “the Fat Man.”
    Â 
    Papá is actually not fat at all.
He is a tall, lean man
who keeps dreaming up ways
to make his fat wallet
even fatter.
    Â 

    Â 
PALOMA
    Â 
    Lottery vendors sing about tickets,
so I buy them, based on my dreams—
a Cuban custom.
    Â 
    If I’ve dreamed about tigers,
I buy number fourteen.
    Â 
    Horse dreams are one,
and death is either eight,
if the person who died in the dream
is a commoner,
    Â 
    or sixty-four,
if the dead man in the dream
is a king.
    Â 
    Dreams of a woman
who is kind and gentle
are number twelve,
    Â 
    so I buy a few of those tickets
even though I have not seen Mamá
in my dreams
for a long time,
    Â 
    and now, when I do see her,
we usually meet
in a nightmare.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    Today, Paloma and I
traded secrets.
    Â 
    She told me she longs
to be a dancer like her mother.
    Â 
    I admitted that I find it hard to believe
I will ever have the chance
to grow old, playing the piano
like my father.
    Â 
    His life as a musician
made him happy.
    Â 
    I always imagined that I
would be happy too,
but now, each night
I dream that German soldiers find me.
    Â 
    I hear the crash of windows falling
and people screaming
and the boots, so many pounding,
drumming boots. . . .
    Â 
    In the morning, I have to struggle
to convince myself that the Nazis
are not here.
    Â 
    Will I ever feel
truly safe?

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    I sit on the beach.
I play drums
for the sea.
    Â 
    Waves are my audience.
The shorebirds do not listen.
They are too busy
making a music
    all their own,
    Â 
    a dance of wings
and stiltlike legs,
    Â 
    each feather
an instrument played
by wind.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    Islands belong to the sea,
not the earth.
    Â 
    All around me
the world is blue.
    Â 
    Above, more blue,
like a hot, melting star.
    Â 
    Music is the only part
of Cuba’s heated air
    Â 
    that feels like something
I can breathe.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    I feel like a King Midas of living things
instead of gold.
    Â 
    Everything I touch
turns into something that grows.
    Â 
    This morning, I heard
a trapped insect chirping
inside the wood of a table—
it must have hatched after
the tree was chopped down.
    Â 
    Last night, I tried to read Spanish stories
in a book marked by worm-eaten pages
and parallel grooves left by rats’ teeth.
    Â 
    In the tropics
everything is eaten
by something else.
    Â 
    Trees lift the sidewalk,
vines swallow buildings,
and fence posts sprout leaves,
turning themselves into hedges.
    Â 
    Like King Midas, I am left with nothing
but this unreasonable hope
that, somehow, my strange life
and my lost family
    Â 
    will return
to normal.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    Cubans eat pigs and shellfish.
Paloma buys crab fritters
and fried pork rinds
from vendors who sing
about the beauty
of beaches and farms.
    Â 
    She might as well offer me
spiders and mice.
She does not understand
our customs.
She