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# Two Poems by Ricardo Hernandez
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/two-poems-by-ricardo-hernandez/
- Published: 2019-01-16T12:00:29.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:40:00.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Wendy Xu, has selected two poems by Ricardo Hernandez 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 07:34 (2019, 2020, part 1)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2019/01/alejandre-cartagene_carpoolers-jam.jpg)

Alejandre Cartagene, “Carpoolers Jam” (2012) at Centro Cultural Palacio de la Moneda, Santiago, Chile (photo by Elisa Wouk Almino/Hyperallergic)

## Lingua Franca

I assure you,  
your Honor,  
I crossed that border but

once: wet  
behind the ears, snuck  
in the pseudo

utero of a hollowed  
stereo speaker.  
In those years,

in that rage,  
I learned to be  
dispossessed; to dress

in your red,  
white & blue.  
I understood

to live, to trek  
in the shadows  
of your steeples,

I was to step  
soft as the shorn ewe  
does, let

my snout touch  
your callused hands  
as the razor’s edge

scoured my hide  
ad naseum.  
Listen:

a bleating  
rings through this  
still. Over & over.

Again.

## Lingua Franca

“You don’t get the right to a hearing”  
\-Bryan Cox, I.C.E. spokesman, 2017

Your Honor,

the field in the form stands blank  
because it’s true:

alien, being of ordinary abilities,

I have no wisdom to peddle,  
no arcanum to speak of.

Every day, my Spanish grows grungy, unkempt.

I was a good-for-nothing brat,  
anyone would attest to that.

I submit:

In 20 plus years of living here  
I never took to pie,

apple or otherwise;

never pocketed a single bill  
from any till.

When the towers fell, I saw

the smoke plumes (tall)  
from the kitchen window;

the hair on my nape raised.

When dad’s ingrown turned septic,  
when ma’s wrist was sprained,

when Lola’s one good eye was cast

to darkness, cash  
is how we paid.

Because I know your enterprise is not

to mince words, to gather wool,  
can only end in my ejection,

Hermano, here’s what I admit:

Unlike the man who dug JFK’s grave  
on his day off

to the tune of $3 an hour,

I will continue to live  
nondescript, to love

even in the fellest fault.

I do not consider myself  
abandoned.

I do not consider our talk  
an honor.

\* \* \*

Ricardo Hernandez is the son of Mexican immigrants. A recipient of fellowships from Lambda Literary and Poets House, his work has appeared most recently in [*The Offing*](https://theoffingmag.com/poetry/you-passed-just-hours-ago-and-notes-on-seroconversion/?ref=hyperallergic.com), [*Foundry*](https://www.foundryjournal.com/hernandez.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), and [*The Los Angeles Review of Books*](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/where-my-dreaming-and-my-loving-live-poetry-the-body-part-i-to-reimagine-healing/?ref=hyperallergic.com). He’s an MFA candidate at Rutgers-Newark.