Playa Girón
The poem is set during the opening hours of the Bay of Pigs invasion on April 17, 1961, when Brigade 2506—a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles—landed at Playa Girón and nearby beaches in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro's government. As Cuban forces quickly mounted a determined defense, the fighting around Playa Girón became one of the defining moments of the invasion.
Playa Girón
The sea remembers.
It remembers the engines
before dawn,
the salt spray,
the prayers spoken softly
by men who had carried a country
inside their hearts
for far too long.
The water did not know politics.
It only knew that young men
were coming ashore,
bringing with them
hope,
fear,
and the unbearable weight
of return.
Cuba lay just beyond the beach.
So close.
gvr
