Fiona’s Reviews > Silver People: A Tale from the Panama Canal > Status Update

A TREE VIPER

Green snake or green plant?

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BITE

MATEO - Payday

The payroll office is just a train car
with two windows and two signs:
GOLD. SILVER. My first two
English words.

Our whole crew waits in a slow, snaking
line that leads to the SILVER sign,
while beside us at the GOLD window,
a short, swiftly moving row of americano
foremen and steam-shovel drivers
hold out big, floppy cowboy hats
to catch a shower of gold.

Gold. Just like the bell-bright coins

MATEO - The voyage from Cuba

Hunger at sea for three days
feels like a knife in the flesh -
twisted blade, rusty metal,
the piercing tip of a long
sharp-edged
dagger
called regret.

But there's no turning back,
and with no food on board,
hunger haunts me
until we finally reach
the slick, wet Panama docks,
where dozens of other ships
are all unloading their fuming,
angry,
hungry
human cargo
in thunderous rain

MATEO from the island of Cuba

to carry me far
from my father's
furious fists.

Sailor.
Fisherman.
Lobster trapper.
I'm willing to take any job
that floats me away
from home

I am not an ordinary war orphan.
Papi is alive, but the family part
of his mind
is deeply wounded.
He drinks so much rum
that he believes I am
his enemy - a Spaniard
from the country
that lost the war
and left so many
of its soldiers
behind