"A Few Things Are Explained To Me" by Ricardo Maldonado

[View this email on a browser]( [Forward to a friend]( [facebook-icon]( [tumblr-icon]( [twitter-icon]( September 11, 2019 [A Few Things Are Explained To Me]( [Ricardo Alberto Maldonado]( for Daniel; after Pablo It was five o’clock when paper handkerchiefs descended over the ocean’s surge— one ocean varnished by oil in the morning, fish under the surge’s blades. My country, you whimpered under fog. I awoke to the tender sound of seashells on the radio. I knelt by myself and listened. Your flat skeleton, large skeleton, would group at your back. Come, you murmured over canned goods. Come. I will tell you everything— clay seeps onto roots, roots drawn by salt, roots crowned by trees. The cords unravel from the flesh of trees, unravel by the storm shutters. Come. See the roads brim with red poppy, roads tracked by green serpents ((a la víbora, víbora / de la mar, de la mar)) I tendered nine eggs before the ignorant lion of exile, who nodded. At five in the morning, everything seemed to be made of lime— one torso shrouded by magnolia, one torso under vulgar peal of grey morgues, and the fish. [Like this on Facebook]( [Share via Twitter]( Copyright © 2019 Ricardo Alberto Maldonado. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 11, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. [Ricardo Maldonado reads "A Few Things Are Explained To Me."]( About This Poem “‘A Few Things Are Explained to Me’ began as an exercise in [Daniel Borzutzky](’s CantoMundo workshop, where I found in a source poem (in my case, [Neruda](’s ‘I Explain a Few Things’) a model to write through, to write about something I cared for, something my mind wanted to work through. In this case: the more than 3,000 hurricane-related deaths in Puerto Rico in 2017, and, if I remember it correctly, my having woken up at 5 AM or so that September morning as radio stations were losing power across the island. Regrettably, two weeks after the workshop, I lost most of my notes in a rainstorm; a page or two of my rewriting survived, some lines from a nursery rhyme I remembered and few smudges.” —Ricardo Alberto Maldonado [Ricardo Maldonado]( Ricardo Alberto Maldonado was born and raised in Puerto Rico. He is the translator of Dinapiera Di Donato’s Colaterales/Collateral (Akashic Press/National Poetry Series, 2013) and author of The Life Assignment, forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2020. He has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Queer | Arts | Mentorship, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He lives in New York City. [more-at-poets]( Poetry by Maldonado [Colaterales/Collateral]( (Akashic Books, 2013) "when you tie rope and ribbon" by Raquel Salas Rivera [read-more]( "No Longer Ode" by Urayoán Noel [read-more]( "Nothing But Death" by Pablo Neruda [read-more]( September Guest Editor: Eduardo C. Corral Thanks to [Eduardo C. Corral](, author of Guillotine, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2020, who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a [Q&A with Corral]( about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our [guest editors for the year.]( Your Support Makes Poem-a-Day Possible Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today’s poets each weekday morning. This free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on the weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. [make a one-time donation]( [illustration]( [Small-Blue-RGB-poets.org-Logo]( Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit [Poets.org](. You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click [here](. © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038 From Our Sponsors [Advertisement](