Listen to Randall Mann read “The Mainland.”

my grandfather, Richard Alvarez

The court declared he couldn’t stay.
The island wasn’t big enough.
He held his tongue and went away.

The man he hit was not okay:
the broken glass; the bloody cough.
The court declared he couldn’t stay.

By twelve he was a bad cliché,
an angry Puerto Rican, tough—
he held his tongue and went away,

a ranch for boys. His work was play:
he broke a horse; he forced a laugh.
The court declared he couldn’t stay,

and if he chose to disobey?
A cell. He didn’t call their bluff,
he held his tongue, and went away:

the mainland with his fiancée.
He worked the docks. He lived as if.
He wasn’t told that he could stay.
He held it in, and went away.

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