A Cuban Modernist in Miami

Adrian Castro

Transcendental poses are fractured by migration
In Rafael Soriano’s chimeras
dreams transpire through the electric human
A body can pitch several lingams—
there is only one home
as it returns from another journey
a new sunrise
an orange memory
hand pointing the indigo way inward
A conjurer throws a fistful of lips
five teeth tell the sunburst story . . .

When we search for an object
there is only finding the quest
it is after all
like that—
you merge you speak
there is art
& you find your way home
inside the infinite

Copyright © 2024 by Adrian Castro. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 4, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

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about this poem

“I wrote this poem as part of a series of ekphrastic poems about Miami. I was fascinated by [Rafael] Soriano’s artistic and immigration stories, by his persistence in making art, and by the narrative arc of his paintings. I thought it was emblematic of the experience of Miami. I wanted to capture that in verse and in rhythm.”

—Adrian Castro

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Thanks to Victor Hernández Cruz, author of Beneath the Spanish (Coffee House Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about Hernández Cruz’s curatorial approach and find out more about our Guest Editors for the year.

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