Rima's Rebellion by Margarita Engle

Author:Margarita Engle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

RESISTANCE

Violeta keeps asking me to meet

her novio, and she continues

trying to send me to the glass shop

to fetch buttons, beads, vases,

glasses, candleholders, figurines,

trinkets, and sculptures

that she’s commissioned,

but I don’t need

her matchmaking skills.

I tell myself that all I want

is independence, even though

the memory of Maceo’s eyes

meeting mine

still feels

undeniably

clear

and

radiant.

DEVASTATION

In October 1926, the fury of a hurricane

joins my own confused rage, destroying

entire neighborhoods

throughout La Habana

and beyond.

The wind

is a hunger

that swallows

houses, fields,

hopes.

¡Ciclón!

¡Peligro!

¡Cuidado!

Bellowed warnings from Mamá and Abuela mean little

when we have no place to hide, no refuge, no shelter,

no strong stone walls like Violeta’s.

So we turn our horses loose, slap their flanks,

and tell them to run, find safety, escape.…

Expecting to die, I barely believe my eyes

when I see Maceo

rushing toward me through the barrage

of airborne objects—palm fronds, oxcarts,

and chicken coops—

all swirling through torrents

of rain

that roar

like monsters.

He guides us uphill,

dodging flash floods

and whirlpools

until we reach

the sturdy

warehouse

behind

his family’s

glass shop.

Walls of mampostería, the sturdy

broken-stone form of adobe

that is held together with a mortar

of clay, bricks, and coral,

any block of any shape

wedged together

like fragments

of a puzzle.

Within the warehouse, we’ll be safe.

Inside Maceo’s world of stone and glass

wind and water won’t reach me.

My only vulnerability will be

this fragile window of emotion

called attraction.

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