¿what is Cuba to me but /

i speak in color / because color is how i was made: /

Así no estaba la calle. Hay lumbre en los carros y en las casas; huele mucho a cohete. En el cielo vuelan esas cosas. Suenan como abejorros grandotes.

brown skin blended into soil / hair strands into grass blades / arms molded into anthills /

The coughing came from deep inside her chest. It was intense, almost violent. La Bruja leaned forward, trying to calm the cough, holding a handkerchief over her mouth, but a dizzy spell hit her, and she found herself tipping over.

It’s been three days of isolation. They’re talking about building a trail through the state park so residents can get back and forth to civilization on foot. A helicopter is coming to evacuate the stranded tourists at Sorrento Lodge. The bakery is out of flour. 

Conocí a tu madre, she says / but I don’t ask her to say more /

This stark dichotomy between illusion and reality was reflected in Kim Kyung-Hoon’s seminal photograph of a mother fleeing tear gas with her daughters at the border.