- Forced to leave from home, but home
- never leaves us. Wherever exile
- takes us, we remain this body made
- from the red earth of our island -
- our ribs taken from its montes -
- its breeze our breaths. We stand
- with its palmeras. Our eyes hold
- its blue-green sea. Waterfalls
- echo in our ears. On our wrists,
- jasmine. Our palms open, close.
- Don’t tell us we’re not Cuban.
- We thrive wherever we remain true
- to our lucha - hustle of our feet
- walking to work as we must,
- oily hands fixing broken beauty
- as we must, soiled hands growing
- what we must, or cutting what
- must be cut. Our pockets filled
- with the island’s sands and pulse
- of its waves, with the gossamer
- dew and dust of its sunrises
- with the song of its sinsontes
- and its son nested in our souls.
- Don’t tell us we’re not Cuban.
- Wherever the world spins us,
- home remains the island that
- remains in us. Its sun still sets
- in our eyes. We’re still caught
- in its net of stars, still listen to
- its moon above its dirt roads.
- We’re its rivers, its coast’s lace,
- its valleys’ windsong, its vast
- seas of sugarcane fields. We are
- our island’s sweetness, still are
- the amber rum born from it.
- Don’t tell me I’m not Cuban.
- Or him. Or her. Or them.
- Or any of us.
