is time is queer/and memory is trans/and my hands hurt in the cold/then



there are ways to hold pain like night follows day
not knowing how tomorrow went down.

it hurts like never when the always is now,
the now that time won't allow.

there is no manner of tomorrow, nor shape of today
only like always having to leave
from and toward the future's could-be,
in order to never more see
the sí;

and if forever proves me wrong,
it'll hurt with the hurt of before the before.
it'll have to take me along:
all the never-enough of why and therefore.

life has given me much to believe,
but more is the doubt that undid what i know,

for, like night follows day, the pleasure is sure,
of forever beginning once more.

About this poem

from X-Ex-Exis. Copyright © 2020 by Raquel Salas Rivera.

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Written on 2020

Submitted by Drone232 on May 25, 2022

Modified on April 25, 2023

42 sec read
115

Quick analysis:

Scheme AX BB ACDDX EFEF CX XF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 640
Words 137
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 5, 4, 2, 2

Raquel Salas Rivera

Raquel Salas Rivera was born in Puerto Rico and currently lives in Philadelphia. Rivera is the author of six chapbooks and four collections of poetry: Caneca de anhelo turbios (Editora Educación Emergente, 2011), tierra intermitente (Ediciones Alayubia, 2017), both published in Puerto Rico; lo terciario/the tertiary (Timeless, Infinite Light, 2018), which was nominated for the National Book Award; and x/ex/exis (poemas para la nación) (Bilingual Press/ Editorial Bilingüe, forthcoming 2019), winner of the first Ambroggio Prize from the Academy of American Poets. Of their work, informed by Leftist politics as well as Spanish language literary traditions, Rivera has said, “There are poems like solidarities. This is the most ideal case. It makes people reach out to me, like after a reading, when I write something and other Boricuas are like, ‘This poem about the debt made me cry.’ When I see them cry, and they're thanking me for writing it, that's not just a poem. It becomes larger than itself. It becomes an interaction in the world, which is doing a kind of political work.” more…

All Raquel Salas Rivera poems | Raquel Salas Rivera Books

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