HOMESICK

PEDRITO

Florida, 1702

Invasions, conquests, settlements,

then attacks by Englishmen and the French,

now rebellions by the Seminole, who try to reclaim

their ancestral land.

All I want is a chance to go home to my own isla,

my birthplace, the beautiful island called Cuba—but

if I had stayed there, I would still be a slave, merely

because of my Yoruba ancestry.

Volunteering as a soldier is the only

path to freedom

for a Cuban of African ancestry.

So I try to forget my family, and I struggle to dream

only of survival, here in the ragged town of San Agustín,

where Spain has already spent seven million pesos

trying to keep this troubled colony obedient.