Havana 1974 by Rosie Prohias Driscoll
Havana 1974
Although I have seen the faded photographs stuck
in album pages overlaid by peel-away plastic,
I do not remember standing on the crumbling
sea wall with Yoyo, Ricky, and Rafi at Guanabo,
a yellow salvavidas sitting on my six-year-old hip
or staring at fireworks flowering in the night sky
at el Carnaval de la Habana while Abuela Rosina held
my hand, her long index finger directing my wide eyes
to the massive papier-mâché heads bobbing along El Malecón.
There are no photographs of the coriaceous creases
on Abuelo Cesar’s face turn to stone, smooth and cold,
when Mami told him she had decided to take us back
to the island they had fled, on a mission to meet Papi’s
parents, who had chosen to stay and stand with Fidel
or of the raised rifle of the Mexico Embassy guard
shooting the tire of the taxi as it pulled away when
Mami set her first foot on the sidewalk, our bright Buster
Browns still dangling from the sticky leather back seat
or of Mami’s left leg shaking across from el agente
de Seguridad del Estado, a thick binder of unknown
contents before her and a portrait of el Che behind her,
answering the same questions for eight hours while we
played en el apartamento del Vedado con la gata Cecilia
or of Mami’s alabaster skin turn ash when Abuela Rosina
reported that there were no re-entry papers to enable
our return through México, pero no te preocupes, hija,
Ricardo lo resuelve con el consul Mexicano, who was out
of the country, but would surely respond to his call
or of the length of Mami’s onyx hair laid on Papi’s linen pillow,
her eyes scanning the room that remained as he left it lined
wall-to-wall with model World War II airplanes and the books
he amassed on his weekly visits to La Moderna Poesía, as she
wondered why he led her there, and how she might get us out
or of the thick eyebrows of the Aeroflot ticket agent, raised
over inscrutable eyes when Mami asked to buy three one-way
tickets to Barbados, even if it meant she must spend all of her cash
and leave her passport for approval hasta después del almuerzo
or of Mami’s sandaled feet frozen on Calle la Rampa when
she heard the rapid footfall of the ticket agent running after her
begging in words hushed and hurried to deliver a message
to her sister Maria in Miami, that their father was dying and could
she please tell her how she had found the way to come home?
or of months later Maria running down her gravel driveway,
arms waving as Mami circled the block looking for the house
on Southwest 6th Street, heralding that la Virgen de las Mercedes
was hovering over our car accompanied by un alma poderoso
with eyes green like mine and a dark mole on his left cheek.
I remember nothing. I only hear the sound of my mother drawing
words from wells deeper than grief, recounting our journey there
and back, on a mission she cannot comprehend, but believes was willed
by my father and Our Lady of Mercy, who hover over us still.