El Paraíso, What Heaven Was Like

His name was Tyler
and in his scheme of seduction
he was telling me what a paradise my country was,
the one I left two years before
I was born.
The D.R. he called it.
My country that I've only visited three times.
The diaphanous warm waters
immaculate beaches.
Wonderful "natives" who worked so efficiently:
you had to do nothing hardly knew they were there.
And so friendly, really, they didn't mind, and need the work.
What a playground, still not spoiled by tourists. For
snorkeling, wind surfing and golf. For writing.
A big, empty playground, he said, as I led his soft hand under my blouse.

Once, a grandfather told us what heaven
was like, paradise, el paraíso, el cielo.
Full of good people called ángeles, nobody hungry, no one had to work.
It was never too hot, never too cold. Everywhere
the most luscious fruits, vegetables, flowers, warmest, calmest waters
for swimming.
But no one drowned, no one
got sick. Nobody died.
I asked if people walked around naked like they did when they first lived
with God
in the garden of Eden.
Girls who say indecent things don't go to heaven, he said. The lesson
was over.

I've only been to heaven three times that I remember.
The very first visit I was just a baby. Had I died then
I'd be an angel.
Mami says all children are
who die
before the age of reason and responsibility, seven.
The second time too old to be an angel
but young enough to dream of coming back
rich. Cartons filled with clothes for everyone,
not just the clothes we could learn to live without,
that we could fit in out suitcases. For
everyone, all three to seven year olds nearly naked
in the roads, hungry in the roads.

Never had enough. Seemed to have so much more than them.
Little girlfriends looking at my jewelry:
Two earrings and a gold pendant. ¿Me lo regalas?
Can you gift it to me? How
could I say no, we all love to regalar.
How could I say yes, it took years of waiting.
for that gold pendant and those small earrings.

of coming back
and opening factories, making jobs everywhere,
building wood houses, no more
angels living in boxes.
Like the AID, at eleven I thought
I had the answer that would make heaven a livable place.

The last time in paradise I learned I'd been wrong, that my mother was wrong.
That grandfather. Tyler.
Most ángeles are tired.

And paradise sounds like pots and pans banging
Tropical breezes
Smells
of cocos, café, limones
garlic and branches burning on stoves like North American campfires.
Every day.
And many women, many teams of women: one for the house, one for the
kitchen,
Teams of angels
Music of merengue playing in the breezes, bachatas,
baladas of Julio, Camilo, young Charitín
or the dreamy voices of unknown Dominicans
The music of cleaning of cooking
of making things beautiful

the best of a bad situation

feeding the children that could be round up?
      housing the ones that could be seen?

Of remaking the house every day
Every detail like a virgin bride or an opera diva. Everyone
fussing at once over la casa y la cocina. Working all morning
working together to make her pretty. Resonant.
so that early in the evening we sit on our freshly
shined rocking chairs
take in tiny cups of black coffee, dulce made in the morning
cry for the children that we wouldn't find?
but the beauty that we put into the novia reflected back to us
or the soft strong angelic notes of Caribbean arias.

Isabel "Rosi" Espinal is a Reference Librarian / Outreach Specialist at the W.E.B. Dubois Library at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where she is active in a number of Library organizations working to improve Latino and Latin American collections, including Reforma: The National Association to...