JUAN

I almost feel free

    here in the kitchen

    released from the stocks

    and the whip

    and the eyes

    of the overseer

    as he stands over me,

    seeing

    my suffering

Here in the kitchen, the girls laugh and tease

    they call me silly, and giggle, and say, please

    sing to us, Golden Beak, just one more verse

    to help us dream sweet daydreams

    of peace!

So while they slice and spice and sweeten and ice

    golden pineapples made cold

    by blocks of frozen water

    brought all the way from some distant

    north

    in the hold

    of a ship

    floating,

while they do these amazing, impossible things

    I sing my rhymed daydreams

    of Kings’ Day and carnivals

Just imagine, they sigh when I’m finished

how sweet to know that time passes

    the calendar moves

    like a horse

    galloping

Soon it will be Kings’ Day!

We would hide piles of straw under our beds

    if we had beds like Don Nicolás and the other

    free children

Just imagine, on the morning of Kings’ Day

we would find gifts

    just like the ones the Three Wise Kings

    brought to the baby Jesucristo

    in his straw-softened manger