By Alejandro Pérez

prince royce says to a former or potential 
lover or someone he’s in love with te regalo 
el mar/ no tiene final/ so maybe it’s okay 
to promise/ a gift that’s impossible to give/ 
fuck it/ let me know if you grow/ exhausted 
of the earth/ & i’ll find you/ a planet/ or 
build you/ your own/ & if you ever wanna
try/ your hand at flying/ let me know/ &
i’ll put gravity on pause/ & if you feel like 
the days never end/ or feel/ like they keep/ 
on racing by/ let me know/ i’ll turn time/ 
into something concrete/ & i’ll put it in 
your hands/ & you can make it go faster/ 
or slower/ or stop it altogether/ if you want

Alejandro Pérez is a student at Columbia University in New York. He is a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Georgia Review, Boulevard, DIAGRAM, The Missouri Review, Passages North, and Spanish-language magazines in Venezuela, Chile, and Spain. He is currently a staff reader for the poetry team at Ploughshares.