Cross-Armed
translated from the Spanish by Thomas Rothe
Useless to look north and
useless to look south.
The cracked sky copies
the cracked earth.
Pressure on the tree contaminates
a forest beyond sight.
Nests fall like dry leaves.
Peeled eggs
are no window onto life.
A rainstorm of darts.
Migrant flocks
drag their defeathered bodies.
This is when I swallow my words.
A brazos cruzados
Es inútil que mire hacia el norte y
mire hacia el sur.
El cielo agrietado copia
la tierra agrietada.
El árbol contagia su estrés
a un bosque que no vemos.
Nidos caen como hojas secas.
Huevos descascarados
no son una ventana a la vida.
Lluvia de dardos.
Bandadas migrantes
se arrastran desplumados.
Esta es una hora en que me trago las palabras.
Copyright © 2026 by Elvira Hernández, translated by Thomas Rothe. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 21, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I think the poem originated from the idea that we have become silent in the face of growing military violence around the world; that we are afraid to raise our voices. So, what should we do with our voices then?”
—Elvira Hernández
“The poetry of Elvira Hernández is both honest and hallucinatory. Her social concerns are met with a vast cultural repertoire, from Chile and elsewhere, that invites readers to look upon their own world from a raw, yet dream-like, perspective. ‘A brazos cruzados,’ or ‘Cross-Armed,’ is a recent, unpublished poem that interrogates society’s indifference in the face of mounting global warfare. This poem, like much of Elvira’s work, defies translation, but it also takes on new voices and meanings when rendered in a different language. I believe those spaces of contact, rather than notions of equivalence, amplify a poem’s possibilities.”
—Thomas Rothe
Elvira Hernández
