The Lightning Dreamer (2 page)

 

Mamá commands me to hush,
and my stepfather grumbles,
so I try to be quiet,
but silence feels
like an endless
echoing
hallway
of smooth
shiny mirrors
that reflect
my ragged
impatience.

 

I end up growling and roaring
like a beast.

Why does my stubborn daughter
bellow and howl each time I tell her
to stop being so loud
and so rude?

 

I'm just doing my motherly
duty—why can't she listen to a voice
of sensible reason?

 

Doesn't she see that her future
is my future, and little Manuel's?
Without Tula's help in achieving
a successful marriage for herself,
no one in this family will ever
possess the sheer power
of great wealth.

On lonely nights, I remember
my father, who allowed me to read
as much as I wanted.
While he was alive, I felt
like my brother's equal. I felt human.

 

I never had to challenge absurd rules
by smashing a glass bookcase,
just to steal a glance
at hidden pages.

 

Now, when Mamá catches me
with a book in my hands and shards
of glass on my shoes, she sends me
to my silent room, where I spend
quiet hours remembering
the freedom
to read.

Shortly before my birth, Papá saw
the head of a rebellious slave
paraded on a stake. The poor man's
hands were nailed to trees; his limbs
tumbled outside
churchyard gates . . .

 

The sight made Papá furious.
He was a soldier, but he'd learned
to detest violence,
growing ill with sorrow
each time he heard rumors
of warfare.

 

Without slavery, he concluded,
there would be no more fighting,
no anger or dread.
He dreamed of returning
to his birthplace in Spain,
and in preparation,
he freed our old cook,
paying her a fair wage
instead of keeping her in chains.

I've been the only cook, maid,
seamstress, gardener, and nanny
in this family
for at least a thousand years.

 

Vaya
—oh well, it certainly feels
like a thousand, even if it's only
thirty or forty. Some years feel
so much longer than others—slower,
deeper, more powerful.
The year when Tula first began
telling me her far-fetched stories
was one of those times.
She was only nine.

 

Now we sit together often,
dreaming of heroic giants
who can defeat bloodsucking
vampires.

When Caridad and I peer
through the bars of a window,
we see weary slave girls trudging
along the rough cobblestone street,
with enormous baskets
of pineapples and coconuts
balanced on their heads.

 

Sometimes I feel as if
I can trade my thoughts
for theirs. Are we really
so different, with our heavy
array of visible
and invisible
burdens?

When fever
took Papá,
I folded
my sorrow
into words,
one tiny
leaf
of paper,
my first
raging poem
of loss.

 

Now each glimpse
of a slave girl's suffering
turns into one more
hidden
verse.

Mamá does not permit me
to attend school like Manuel,
so a tutor comes to the house,
instructing me in music and art.
For lessons in embroidery
and saints' lives, I go to the convent,
where veiled nuns permit me
to read mysterious tales
of hermits, martyrs, and beasts,
like the story about Santa Margarita,
who was swallowed by a dragon.

 

Each day, after my lessons, the nuns
let me visit their marvelous library,
where I feel as if I have entered
heaven on earth.

The poems Tula recites
fall onto my ears
like shooting stars
or flowers
in a storm wind,
plummeting toward earth
instead of drifting.

 

Each verse is an arrow
piercing my past—the years
of bondage that prevented me
from learning to read
while I was young.

 

Tula says it's never too late,
but I'm old, and I'm so very tired,
and I have too much work . . .

We read all manner of verse and prose
forbidden to other females.

 

For Tula to gain the freedom to enjoy
unlimited reading later in life,
she will have to take vows and join us.
Beyond these convent gates, books
are locked away
and men
hold
the keys.