The poems below correspond to the author's Puertas, Boleros y Cenizas collection. I have chosen some of the poems for translation and entitled the English rendition, Doors, Boleros, and Ashes. Yuray Tolentino Hevia (Guira de Melena, Cuba) combines the harsh reality of being one of the remaining members of her generation's hometown in present-day Cuba. The rest of her immediate community has fled to the multiple diasporic destinations of the world, mainly to Miami, Florida. She suffers the loss of her beloved brother in a car accident. Her poetry abounds with aphorisms well-known to all Cubans; maxims from the Fidel Castro era, such as; Pioneers for Communism, we will be, the renowned phrase History will absolve me, pronounced by Castro during his self-defense speech before a formal military trial, and cartoon lines like Viviendo en Leche Cortada/Living in Sour Milk, a former Soviet Union cartoon a whole generation used to watch every day at 6 p.m. in the only channel we had. Lidice Megla. Vancouver Island, May 2024.