Green

The road we take leads to our demise.

Look at this road I travel every Sunday.
I pass rows and rows of tall green corn
alongside the purple majesty flowers.

It is such a different road and so far away
from the road we thought we were following
that morning we left Havana.

My mother is waiting in the distant
hallway, small in stature compared to the
woman who used to take me by the hand
whenever we had to cross roads.

Every Sunday I ask her the same question.
Mami tu sabes quien soy yo?

She doesn't answer so I ask
her again as if she did not hear me
the first time or the second or third time.

Once I feel my eyes starting to swell, I stop.

My mother's eyes are green pools of oceans
swam now replaced by roads of rows and
rows of green corn fields without the sting
of salt in the air. Yet it is the same clear
blue sky blanket that covered us when we
left for liberty. My mother's eyes in silence
tell me who I am every Sunday.

We are still refugees.

She to Alzheimer's and
me to continually asking myself
who I am.