The Hands of the Taino
I. ADMIRAL
Laid out on vellum, the past
is a long wound. It unfolds
five centuries later,
beneath the heavy pens of scholars.
The world shifts and spins
as the Admiral's bronze astrolabe
measures the paths between stars.
The sky is written in the sea's
uneasy mirror, and mermaids
comb their hair in the distance.
They are not, he writes, so beautiful
as I have heard. He dreams of his own
circuitous route to the Heavens.
God and the Crown. Both want too much.
II. GOVERNOR
At Guanahani, they swam to the caravel
bearing parrots and balls of cotton thread,
these people so unlike him they could not
not be saved.
Too angry to sleep,
the Governor haunts every room in his castle.
The servants whisper in their own tongue.
The severed hands of the Taino
wave in clear salt water,
in pink-tinted water.
They wave as the gold mines dry up,
as the Governor leaves Hispaniola in chains.
Mermaids, dog-headed men and women
with breastplates of copper—
They draw their bows, and arrows
cover the shore of Columbus's dream.
No, not the Taino, whom he once called in dios.
They touch his white skin.
They have the faces of Christian angels.
Copyright Credit: "The Hands of the Taino" from The Island of Lost Luggage by Janet McAdams. Copyright © 2000 by Janet McAdams. Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press.