Enchanted Air

by Margarita Engle

  MY GRANDMOTHER’S MARE

  Men with machetes chop sugarcane.

  Boys on horseback show off rope tricks.

  I’ll never get tired of seeing

  all the things I don’t know

  how to do.

  The one thing I know best

  is how to daydream

  while watching horses,

  so when Tío Darío

  points to a red mare

  with a round belly,

  and tells me that she belongs

  to his sister—my abuelita—

  I ask if I can ride her.

  Not yet, is the frustrating answer.

  But the mare is pregnant,

  and my great-uncle promises

  that next summer, I can help

  train the foal, which,

  according to Tío Darío

  will be

  half mine!

  I’ll be expected to share with my sister,

  but in just a few short months,

  each of us will be half owner

  of a colt

  or a filly.

  When I squeeze the sun-browned hand

  of my grandma’s brother, his skin feels

  as hard as a tree trunk,

  scarred by farmwork

  and strengthened by time.

  Next summer—so soon,

  but my excitement makes a whole year

  seem

  like forever.

  BREATH

  Today all the cousins are riding

  out to a thicket of wild mamoncillo trees,

  where even the girls will be allowed to climb

  up tall trunks to pick fruit, and bring back

  enough for the grown-ups.

  One of the older boys leads me

  to a brown horse that has no saddle,

  just a small, square patch of blanket

  that shifts around as I climb up a fence

  to make myself tall enough for a leap

  onto the back of the gelding that will

  carry me fast enough to catch up

  with Mad and all the cousins,

  who are already

  so far ahead. . . .

  Across a field, up a hill, and then—

  so soon, before I’ve even had a chance

  to prove my courage—the scrap

  of blanket slips backward, sliding

  off the rump of the horse, so that I

  tumble into a swamp of muddy red

  hoofprints.

  The horse stops, turns, and gazes at me,

  perplexed, his dark eyes asking why

  I was foolish enough to mount him

  with just a blanket, instead of a tightly

  cinched saddle, and the sturdy

  reassurance of stirrups.

  How will I ever manage to train

  a spirited young colt or filly

  if I can’t even ride an old gelding?

  I wipe my tears, and this time, I climb up

  onto the horse’s bare back

  without the help of a fence, leaving

  that slippery blanket

  where it belongs, half-buried

  in blood-red mud, while I cling

  to the thick mane with both hands,

  and grasp strong brown sides

  with my legs.

  I can feel the hot air

  steaming from horse sweat,

  a smell that will always

  remind me of courage.

  By the time I reach distant fruit trees,

  the harvest is over, all the cousins

  wheeling their horses around

  to ride home.

  It doesn’t matter, because

  with exhilarated breath

  and a drumming heart,

  I feel as if I’ve galloped

  so far beyond anything

  I’ve ever known before

  that I’m already grown-up

  and independent.

  HASTA PRONTO/UNTIL SOON

  I came to this island of relatives

  with nothing but butterflies.

  Now I’m leaving with secret bullets,

  and a gleaming, pale yellow stalactite

  that Mami brought from a cave

  where Cuban Indians

  hid from Spanish invaders.

  I have a wild boar’s skull, too,

  and the rattling jawbone

  of a musical mule,

  and the promise

  of a horse to share

  with my sister.

  A filly or colt of our own,

  next summer’s

  treasure.

  Soon.

  So soon.

  Strange Sky

  1961–1964

  THE FARAWAY GIFT

  Back in the United States, I return to quiet days

  of reading and schoolwork and waiting

  for a letter from Abuelita.

  When it arrives, a small photo

  of a chestnut colt

  is enclosed inside a folded sheet

  of airmail paper

  so delicate

  that it resembles

  a sliver

  of moonlight.

  Long legs. Bristly mane.

  The red colt looks wild,

  like a prehistoric horse.

  Mythical. Prophetic.

  An oracle colt who foresees

  my future as a trainer,

  adventurer,

  explorer—

  maybe even a winged

  centaur.

  Next summer,

  the transformation

  will begin!

  Until then,

  my true self

  awaits me in Cuba.

  UNTIL NEXT SUMMER

  I’ll have to share the red colt with Mad,

  but some treasures are so stunning

  that fantasies about them

  become private.

  It’s the same way

  when I think of boys,

  who used to look

  like nothing more

  than short, boring,

  grown-up men.

  Now they’re beginning to seem

  mysterious, even though I’m only

  nine, and most boys still

  ignore me.

  OUT OF REACH

  News from the island grows worse

  each day.

  Diplomats are expelled.

  Relations between the two countries

  I love

  break down.

  Dad says there won’t be a next summer

  on the island.

  No visit, no farm life, no horse,

  no winged centaur.

  No Abuelita either,

  or Great-Grandma.

  Mami turns into Mom, changing

  before my eyes

  from an ordinary person

  who left her homeland

  believing that she would return

  every year—

  to this strange, in-between-nations

  exile, a lost wanderer

  whose country of birth

  and extended family

  suddenly seem

  as remote

  as the moon

  or Mars.

  SOME THINGS SHOULD NEVER CHANGE

  I know exactly when Mami became Mom,

  but Dad is still Dad, painting Don Quixote,

  the wistful knight who dreams of courage.

  The eyes of those paintings

  still look like my eyes.

  How long will it be

  until the two countries I love

  forgive each other and move on

  so that I can live on horseback,

  like that wistful knight,

  the dreamer?

  I’m not even sure what there is to forgive.

  Something about Cuba seizing ownership

  of oil refineries.

  It’s all so confusing.

  Why should something as ugly
as oil

  affect friendships between nations?

  WHY DO WE HAVE TO MOVE?

  I love to travel, but I hate moving.

  Dad wants an art studio, and Mom

  longs for a bigger garden,

  so they’ve borrowed money

  to buy a strange house

  on a steep hill,

  a precarious home

  that feels dangerous,

  as if it could slide

  down this slope

  during the next

  earthquake.

  Mom struggles to tame

  her fierce hillside garden

  of poisonous castor bean weeds

  and intriguing trap-door spiders—

  clever, big-eyed creatures who peer

  from small, round doorways,

  the entrances to dark,

  hidden tunnels

  deep in this dry clay soil

  of our oddly wild

  city home.

  STRAYS

  Sixth grade in a new school

  means a long hike down the steep hill

  on a wooden stairway that takes the place

  of a street, as if I have moved

  into a story about some other

  century.

  Mad has already started junior high,

  and the girl next door calls me Spanish

  and treats me like a curiosity,

  so I feel completely alone

  at this new school

  where no one knows me.

  Hardly anyone speaks to me,

  until one day

  on the way home,

  I find a tiny calico cat

  stranded beneath

  the wooden stairway.

  The colorful stray kitten

  offers me the poetry

  of her purr,

  so I pick her up,

  take her home,

  and demand

  the right

  to keep her.

  My parents are so distracted by news

  that they say yes, even though

  Dad is allergic and Mad has

  a new puppy.

  My kitten will have to be an outdoor cat,

  but that’s fine, because I want to stay

  outdoors too, playing all day

  with bugs and plants

  instead of people.

  I have no human friends, and no way

  to reach the island of my horse,

  so I search for birds and blossoms

  to identify, and I carry a hammer,

  just in case I find rocks with crystals

  or fossils to extract.

  There’s something about knowing

  the names and faces

  of nature’s creations

  that helps me feel

  almost at home

  in my sharply divided

  shrinking

  world.

  MY LIBRARY LIFE

  Books become my refuge.

  Reading keeps me hopeful.

  I fall in love with small poems,

  the shorter the better—haiku

  from Japan, and tiny rhymes

  by Emily Dickinson.

  Then I move on to long volumes

  that I can’t really understand—sonnets

  and plays by Shakespeare, and novels

  written for adults—tales of tropical lands

  with a hot, brilliant sun that shines down

  on human troubles.

  Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

  from Nigeria.

  Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya

  from India.

  I never find any books

  about the beautiful green

  crocodile-shaped island

  that throbs

  at the center of my being,

  like a living creature,

  half heart

  and half beast.

  Maybe someday

  I’ll try

  to write one.

  APRIL 1961

  Bay of Pigs.

  A swampy invasion.

  It’s all over the news—

  an attack by CIA-trained

  Cuban exiles, armed

  with weapons

  from the United States.

  They landed only fifty miles from Trinidad.

  But they’re soon defeated.

  The vast United States loses,

  while tiny Cuba wins, and now

  both governments

  are even angrier

  than before.

  Travel restrictions are tightened.

  There’s no way we’ll ever

  be able to visit the faraway half

  of our family.

  JUNIOR HIGH

  A stay-at-home summer

  of books, spiders, a kitten,

  plants, rocks, and then, in September:

  Washington Irving Junior High.

  A school named for the author

  of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

  Maybe that’s why I feel

  like a shadow.

  Seventh grade.

  Eleven years old.

  A bookworm-misfit

  with long black braids,

  childish white socks,

  pointy pink glasses,

  and no courage

  for flirting.

  It doesn’t take long to learn

  that I’m ridiculous.

  Girls ignore me, or tell me to cut

  my old-country braids,

  while boys ignore me, or taunt me

  for wearing thick glasses.

  So I stumble through the halls—

  glassesless—enduring blurry vision

  in my doomed effort

  to fit in.

  By the end of the first month,

  I’ve chopped off my hair

  and started ratting it,

  thrashing the black strands

  backward,

  to create stiff

  knots and tangles.

  I shave my legs.

  Experiment with eyeliner.

  Mascara.

  Lipstick.

  A rolled-up skirt

  serves as a dare, inviting

  the stern girls’ vice principal

  to suspend me.

  She does.

  One whole afternoon at home

  with a book.

  If only I could change

  my timid nature,

  instead of my

  short skirt.

  LEARNING

  Once I’ve mastered the art

  of pretending that I don’t care

  what other kids think of me,

  I start to pay attention in class,

  discovering that I love

  library research

  for history term papers

  about ancient lands.

  It feels like a form

  of time travel.

  In English class, I write myths—

  stories to explain small

  scientific mysteries,

  such as why does a sloth

  hang upside down,

  and how does a snail

  feel about time?

  At home, I scribble tiny poems

  all over the walls of my room.

  Inside those miniature verses,

  I feel safe, as if I am a turtle,

  and the words

  are my shell.

  LEARNING THE HARD WAY

  I love words, but I hate numbers.

  In algebra, bizarre formulas defeat me.

  I don’t care why X is greater than Y.

  I don’t even care if I flunk.

  There’s no point working so hard,

  when other kids mock me anyway,

  for being smart, while feeling stupid.

  So I ditch class to hide in the bathroom,

  pretending to smoke.

  Girls who really do smoke stare at me.

  Gradually, they begin talking to me. />
  One by one, they appear to befriend me,

  asking—will I write their term papers?

  Will I do their English and history homework?

  Sure.

  Why not?

  I’m already in trouble.

  Why not hang out with troublemakers?

  SOLITUDE

  So I join other girls who belong

  nowhere, and we roam together

  at school.

  But on weekends,

  while they go to parties,

  I walk alone to a museum

  where Native American weaving

  and baskets are on display.

  Unsigned.

  Unclaimed.

  I’ll never know the names

  of the women who made

  all these beautiful objects

  of useful art.

  Does the work of a girl

  always have to be

  so anonymous?

  OCTOBER 1962

  Grim news.

  Chilling news.

  Terrifying.

  Horrifying.

  Deadly.

  Just the shock and fear are enough

  to make old people die of heart attacks,

  while young ones have to endure

  a vigil, this torment,

  the slow wait

  to start breathing

  poisoned air.

  US spy planes have photographed

  Soviet Russian nuclear weapons

  in Cuba.

  Air-raid drills at school.

  Doomsday warnings.

  Rants against the island.

  Hate talk.

  War talk.

  Sorrow.

  Rage.

  SOLITARY

  I feel like the last survivor

  of an ancient tribe,

  the only girl in the world

  who understands

  her language.

  This huge city feels too small

  to hold all my feelings.

  I crave a true wilderness,

  where I can be alone.

  Unknown.

  My parents must be in shock,

  because they mostly speak

  to each other, and mostly

  in whispers.

  I imagine they must be saying things

  too terrible for me and Mad

  to hear.

  MORE DANGEROUS AIR

  Newsmen call it the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  Teachers say it’s the end of the world.

  At school, they instruct us to look up

  and watch the Cuban-cursed sky.

  Search for a streak of light.

  Listen for a piercing shriek,

  the whistle that will warn us

  as poisonous A-bombs

  zoom close.

  Hide under a desk.

  Pretend that furniture is enough