Welcome back to Verbatim, our stage for amateur and professional writers. Today we hear from Cuban-born Ricardo Pau-Llosa. Pau-Llosa has lived in the United States since 1960 and his poetry is said to synthesize contemporary American and classical Hispanic symbols. His book of poetry Sorting Metaphors (1983) won the first Anhinga Poetry Prize and his poetry book Cuba (1993) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
CRAB AND THE RAG
by Ricardo Pau-Llosa
When the man dropped his shirt
as he was leaving the beach with girl and beer,
he couldn’t have imagined what I would do
with this rag. Little house, soft labyrinth.
Tent, cloud monkey. Playing card
without number, sign, or face--
played on the table of my beach,
because he who makes of what he finds
dreamt belonging becomes the sole owner,
the one who sets traps for rags.
First published in Orion, 26: 4, July/August 2007. Pau-Llosa’s sixth collection of poems, Parable Hunter, is due out soon from Carnegie Mellon Univ. Press. For more inforamtion visit www.pau-llosa.com.
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