My mother sewed three makeshift
worm shaped duffle bags out of a sail’s
canvas the day after three men in
uniform walked away from the front door
of the old Spanish house in Havana
my family owned for over a century.
They came on the very night my father
dreamt they would. They carried our permit
to leave the country. They said we were scum,
said we betrayed “Fidel” and the revolution.
A week later my parents scrambled
to buy coats in the black market because
there are no department stores or winter in Cuba,
and Madrid (or any exile for that matter)
is always cold during winter.
All they could find that would fit
a six year old boy was the coat
of a ten year old Russian girl
who died in Havana as a result
of mosquito induced meningitis.
A month later, I walked through the airport
wearing an oversized dead girl’s coat
with big square buttons, and carried
my belongings in a worm shaped canvas bag
branded with a blue partial race number on one side.
They confiscated my mother’s
wedding ring, and said that a six year old
boy dressed as a dead ten year old Russian
girl from the Moscow sailing team,
should not be traveling wearing
his grandfather’s gold crucifix.
That was the last time I cross-dressed
and also the last time I filled a sail
with something else other than wind.
DQ 7/20/07
