Robert Fernandez
REHEARSAL (ARTHUR [TOTAL ECLIPSE, 1995
DIR. AGNIESZKA HOLLAND])
What hurts when
you’re young is
that there’s
no one. There’s
never anyone,
is there? All
you’re left with
are the embarrassing
memories of your
earliest efforts.
The heart has
a capsule like
a worm in
tequila
that falls
out when
a child dies.
When a child
dies, the heart
vomits the
seed of a demon.
Everything is lost.
There’s no one.
I want you
to feel the
truth of it.
The truth of
loss. Of devastation.
A moth stands
up in the
afterbirth,
red eyes dreaming
of money.
Honey, you
don’t even
know where
I’ve been.
The world
hurts. The
girl I am
gave birth
to the man.
ROBERT FERNANDEZ is the author of Scarecrow (Wesleyan, 2016), Pink Reef (Canarium, 2013), and We Are Pharaoh (Canarium, 2011). He is also the co-translator of a selection of Stéphane Mallarmé’s work, Azure (Wesleyan, 2015). His poems have appeared in Callaloo, Huizache, The Nation, The New Republic, Poetry, Transition, and The Yale Review.
ISSUE THIRTEEN features poetry by Luci Arbus-Scandiffio, Rick Barot, Stephanie Burt, Lauren Camp, Laura Cronk, William Virgil Davis, Chelsea Dingman, Erica Ehrenberg, Robert Fernandez, Gabriel Fried, Tracy Fuad, David Gorin, Jennifer Hasegawa, Stefania Heim, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Ish Klein, Wayne Koestenbaum, Christopher Kondrich, Keetje Kuipers, Anna Leahy, Alessandra Lynch, Alicia Mountain, Allan Peterson, Iain Haley Pollock, Adrienne Raphel, Emily Rosko, Lauren Shapiro, Adrienne Su, Cole Swensen, Tom Thompson, Anne Waldman, G.C. Waldrep, and Stella Wong; fiction by Rachel Lyon and Benjamin Niespodziany; nonfiction by Angela Ball and Joanna Luloff; a film essay by Gustavo Pérez Firmat; and Anne Waldman in conversation with Sandra Simonds.