New Orleans
It’s been like this for days.  The words dancing in my head.  I’ve spent most of my time in a van.  On a tour.  Driving in Houston and College Station and San Antonio and Austin.  Driving across the border to Louisiana.  Louisiana looking like Cuba.  This is my prep time for my trip next month.  Humidity, acres of green, no toilet paper in public bathroom and the spirits.  There’s one in this house.  We are here for a total of two days.  Floor boards creak while I pray.  She stands behind me.  Beside me.  I can’t see her but I feel her.  I pray. I forgot about this.  The spirits of New Orleans.  I was overcome with sadness as we

the last days
I am going to miss this.  Ramadan.  I was shy in the beginning.  Not wanting to tell people it was my first.  But when I looked out into the horizon and caught a glimpse of the crescent moon I couldn’t help but want to savor that moment.  I still see it.  The fog rolling in, the oranges and peaches of the sky.  I can still feel how my heart expanded that first night, the first early rise for suhoor.  I made eggs and veggie sausages and toasted some spelt muffins for my friend and I.  I felt like a mother.  Like my mother when she used to wake up before dawn to make breakfast for my father.  I woke up as well.  This is what daughters of bakers do. IR

Tía Rosa
She has a painting of Fidel in her living room.  He was young in his trademark green.  Tía Rosa loves Fidel so much that she doesn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t like him.  He has given maternity leave to women for a whole year, she told me once.  I smiled.  I couldn’t tell her that he is not perfect.  She wouldn’t understand the concept of loving someone in all their complexities. To her there is nothing complex about Fidel. She is the one that stayed.  The one with a chest full of revolutionary medals.  I am not sure if she ever picked up a rifle.  She must of, at least once.  Tía Rosa received medals for her outstanding work in e