Robert Fernandez

A CAMEL

carries
water
through
desert
it does
hurt
it is
sand
it is
hot
it is
dry
I can
still
hock
a loogie
in your
eye
and leave
you
in the
dust
if I
must
if I
must

ROBERT FERNANDEZ was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and raised in Hollywood, Florida. He is the author of the poetry collections We Are Pharaoh (Canarium), Pink Reef (Canarium), and Scarecrow (Wesleyan). His poems have appeared in A Public Space, The Believer, Chicago Review, The New Republic, and Poetry. A portion of his translation of Félix Morisseau-Leroy’s Antigone in Haiti appeared in The Brooklyn Rail’s InTranslation series, and he has translated poems by José Asunción Silva and Benjamín Puche for the Central Bank of Colombia.