
Out from Wings Press, 2016
SHE BECOMES TIME New Poems
Written in Patria o Muerte
When night shrouds this Havana streetits buildings might befreshly painted,no electrical wires strugglingfor power, no despairhanging from a full moonpale orange in duplicitous sky.Night the great equalizer—what we do not seecannot make us sad.Fifty-six years: pridedefiant against insult,hair-trigger designedto bring a nation to its knees.In daylight the ragged shellsof buildings gone to agesuccumb to the tropics’sudden downpour,claim a redemptionwritten in patria o muerte,traded in a currencycalled spirit, a future not soldto the highest bidder,not recognizedon any stock exchangeor designed to dominateand kill.We live in community, or die.