The stories you can't find in books

Herded, cornered.

An embassy.

Fences like men

with words of guns.

Pointed, loaded

at temples, heads.

Throngs of cattle,

A brother's battle

"Ven conmigo hermano!"*

A comprade, a friend.

Running,

fleeing the country,

But Havana streets

don't forgive.

The soldiers; cropped, cut.

Castro: a religion.

Blind followers,

brought to their knees, man-made power.

A man, lynched

His face, red like communism.

Bloody, burning,

telling my mother's

Imploring, innocent

eyes to leave him.

Let him die.

A mother.

Shaking palms

like the turbulence on a plane.

Her daughter. "Halt."

"Tu pasaporte?"**

False identity,

False American dreams.

Saved by seconds.

My mother.

Tears like the waters

Of Varadero***.

Tears that fall

uncomfortably on dinner table plates,

to this day.

And I ask

"Who did this?"

"Why?"

How did a ship full of prisoners to the promise of change

bring these people

That speak today?

And I listen

Close my eyes, envision

Matanzas**** on a hot summer day.

Mantecado***** sundaes

dripping down a 5 year old's

freckled faced.

This isn't the Hemingway

getaway,

Cuban escape.

It's the black book of history.

The story Univision

isn't saying.

Journalists pan cameras

On wasteland.

Writing articles on

embassies, political handshakes.

But it all starts with

The stories of the dead,

The ones who can't unsee,

Unhear the threats.

"Tell me what happened."

The moments that bring those pangs, hammers to their chest.

"What was your story?"

I'm jotting down, no paper or pen.

The novels stored within.

The stories. The faces.

My inescapable company.

*"Come with me brother!"

** "Your passport?"

*** Cuban beach

**** City in Cuba

***** Ice-cream flavor