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Matanzas, Cuba

CECILIAI

I remember a wide river

and gray parrots with patches of red feathers

flashing across the African sky

like traveling stars

or Cuban fireflies.

In the silence of night

I still hear my mother wailing,

and I see my father’s eyes

refusing to meet mine.

I was eight, plenty old enough

to understand that my father was haggling

with a wandering slave trader,

agreeing to exchange me

for a stolen cow.

Spanish sea captains and Arab merchants

are not the only men

who think of girls

as livestock.

Excerpted from The Firefly Letters by .

Copyright © 2010 by Margarita Engle.

Published in 2010 by Henry Holt and Company.

All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.