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# One Poem by Roberto Montes
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/one-poem-by-roberto-montes/
- Published: 2016-08-31T11:02:25.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:42:02.000Z
- Description: Our new poetry editor, Wendy Xu, has selected one poem by Roberto Montes for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Wendy Xu
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

*Our* [*new poetry editor, Wendy Xu*](https://hyperallergic.com/welcome-wendy-xu-hyperallergics-new-poetry-editor-as-joe-pan-shifts-to-fiction/)*, has selected one poem by Roberto Montes for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.*

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![JOHNR73386 (1)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/08/johnr73386-1.jpg)

Rashid Johnson, “Falling Man” (2015), burned red oak flooring, white ceramic tile, spray enamel, mirror, black soap, wax, 96 1/2 x 72 1/2 x 2 1/2 in (© the artist, image courtesy Hauser & Wirth)

## 

## Elegy

Should I kill myself  
Should I in all my craving  
For self-realization Realize I did  
Nothing To deserve  
The family that could afford to  
Save me Should I question  
The motives of the man who wants  
To make me great If he is  
A user To whom should I complain  
Should I allow my participation in a space to  
Absolve that space of accountability  
What is the duty of the poet  
Where did I see myself in 10 years  
Would anyone be better  
Knowing what I don’t  
How do I convince the dead  
What my career can afford them  
Where can they send their thanks  
When the poems that invoke their names  
Win acclaim  
Is a career climber poet of color preferable  
To a career climber pale in the face  
As if they have just been spooked  
By an insinuation of prejudice  
When a latinx thumbs through their contacts  
To show off at the dinner table  
Do our ancestors know  
It’s for them we scroll  
A labor don’t forget  
We should be paid for  
A reasonable deal A fat honorarium  
There is nothing further  
From poetry than the little tokens  
We use to justify its existence  
The voice you find is not your own  
Maturing on the page  
The desktop pageantry of removed reflection  
Do I pretend to be above it  
Should I admit the time I blacked out  
Alone at my computer  
Told a gay white poet I don’t like  
That another gay white poet I don’t like  
Was too beautiful to be talented  
Should I talk about beauty  
What have I earned disfiguring my body  
The name of the 13 year old  
In the suicide ward I can’t recall  
When her father told my own  
I would return  
When she called me handsome  
And I blushed 16 years old  
And forced to listen to Enya every night  
Before a mandatory sleep  
The nurses joked it was better  
Than a shot in the ass  
What do they know  
The caretakers of the world  
Those who lock the door behind you  
Who reward the narratives of grief  
The way we kill ourselves or try  
Anoint me then I want to die  
But I survive Each day  
Our betters don’t  
Who am I on their behalf  
For whose memory  
Do we build the shrine  
When the time comes  
Which of you will come for my body  
Intern me  
In your poem  
Will you get my name right  
Tell me  
How would you know

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[Roberto Montes](http://robertomontes.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) is the author of [*I Don’t Know Do You*](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0988732874/?tag=hyperallergic-20&ref=hyperallergic.com), named one of the Best Books of 2014 by NPR. His poetry has appeared in *The Volta*, *Guernica*, *The Literary Review*, *Whiskey Island*, and elsewhere. A new chapbook, *Grievances*, is forthcoming from the Atlas Review TAR chapbook series.