[Untitled]
translated from the Spanish by Kristin Dykstra
For Alejandra
The girl wanted to understand poetry.
“There is grass growing where the flower once was.”
I wanted her to get it, because that’s how I see the world.
For her, it’s more logical that a doll would open its eyes in the night.
That a doll would have children, that’s logical to her.
She tried to explain to me, but I don’t really get it either.
I ask her:
How can I be the father of a t-shirt you made into a doll with your own hands?
Of course he’s your son! You don’t get it.
He’s looking for you in the bed, because he doesn’t want to sleep alone!
Because he doesn’t want to fall out!
To her, it’s normal for a doll to open its eyes in the night.
[Sin título]
A Alejandra
La niña quería entender la poesía.
“Crece la hierba donde la flor estuvo”.
Yo quería que entendiera porque así yo veo el mundo.
Para ella es más lógico que una muñeca abra los ojos por la noche.
Que una muñeca tenga hijos es la lógica para ella.
Ha tratado de explicarme, pero yo tampoco entiendo bien.
Le pregunto:
¿Cómo puedo ser padre yo de un pullover hecho muñeco con tus manos?
¡Claro que es tu hijo! No entiendes nada.
¡Te busca en la cama porque no quiere dormir solo!
¡Porque no quiere caerse!
Para ella es muy normal que una muñeca abra los ojos en la noche.
Copyright © 2025 by Marcelo Morales. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 26, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I wrote this poem for my stepdaughter, Alejandra. I met her mother during the COVID-19 pandemic. Coexistence was our shared challenge within such a harsh situation. Alejandra began to read my books of poetry. She wanted to understand some lines, the meaning they held. I realized there was a connection between poetry and the world of childhood. These two worlds dealt with the art of the impossible, the image, the movement of meaning. Metaphor.”
—Marcelo Morales
“As Marcelo’s translator, I’m constantly thinking about traslación, the word Marcelo used [in his statement], which I rendered as ‘movement.’ These same words are associated with translation. Once you pause to think of translation’s multidimensionality, its omnipresence in everyday life grows visible. I too wonder how to make poetic worlds connect through the art of the impossible, an image. The movement of meaning, a translation, may be asymmetrical in some way. Translation can be every bit as imperfect as the real world, and every bit as real.”
—Kristin Dykstra
Marcelo Morales
