Poem: Lo que sé

Written August 2019, Panamá. 

I used to know how to find a derivative,

how to calculate the surface area of a sphere, 

any sphere.

I could tell you the unemployment rate in India, 

and the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere.

I used to know what was going on in Congress,

what storm or terror was breaking news.

I used to know the shape of my own eyebrows, even.

Imagine.

I heard that a plane crashed this week,

in Florida, I’m pretty sure,

and that two children were shot

for no reason at all.

My country is falling into a

constitutional crisis, or

so they say.

Then there’s the ice.

The ice is melting, you see–

all of it–

faster than they thought.

Statues of old slipping quietly

into the ocean,

or maybe crashing loudly,

violently,

if someone is there to listen. 

Is someone there

to listen? In the distance there is a crackle,

the forests cook to a rusty crisp,

quemando.

My heart breaks

at each and all of these things,

me siguen a mis sueños.

Icy towers tumble, too, in the

deepness in me,

in the deep that is me,

I shudder with the knowledge that

this is not how it has to be.

But if we’re honest,

I am not as sure of these facts,

As I am that

today was the first day it rained in months,

ya viene la lluvia,

they say,

or that a chiva ride to Chitre will cost me exactly $1.20,

ni más ni menos,

or that there are as many kinds of mangoes

as there are people; 

piña, chancleta, papayo,

bruised outside, instead of within,

in bloody greens and purples,

varying shades of atardecer.

Imagine.

Somewhere, someone 

is calculating the GDP of a country 

they’ve never visited,

whose borders were drawn by

a sharp ruler 

in a far off land.

They were not so sure, either, it seems.

I sit with this thought for a moment,

then return to my work,

stripping the waxy green and purple skin

with my teeth

to reveal a warm, orange brain.

Bien maduro, dulcecito,

it beats beneath my fingers.

Like a surgeon holding a heart, 

I feel it pulse.

You see, here,

the crisis has already come 

and gone,

and it will come again,

they say.

In the meantime,

I let the juice drip 

and the fibers wind

themselves through my teeth.

Though they bother me,

I leave them there

to remember the sweetness.