What Survives

Sixteen years ago
I found them in the French Quarter
in a little shop of relics
beside an old bookstore.

They were standing by a window.

I remember thinking
how odd.

Years later
I took them to Cuba.

There is an energy there
I have never known how to explain—
something old
something enchanted
something that has survived
every version of itself.

Maybe I thought
they would recognize it.

Since then, they have crossed water
gone to Cuba and come back
staying with me
from one life into another.

Maybe they are only objects.

But I have carried them too far
and loved them too long,
for that to be true.