cristinadelcanto
Cristina Del Canto is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Blue Bonnet Review, an online and print literary journal based in Houston and New Orleans. Del Canto is an award-winning poet and journalist; her poetry, in both English and Spanish, has been featured in literary journals and magazines nationwide. Her first poetry book will be released in 2016. Visit www.cristinadelcanto.com to view more of her work.
At 21, the Jordan River baptized me,
at last – my mother was exuberant:
her first-born saved from being
young, drunk, and beautiful. On the
third day, we swam in the Dead Sea.
I tried to float, but, my doubts weighed
me down and I did not rise. A week later,
I watched my mother kneel in the
Garden of Gethsemane, eyes closed,
head bent in fervent prayer. Afterwards,
we walked Via Dolorosa, her feet blistered
and so we exchanged sandals. I slipped hers
on and swallowed the ominous lump in my
throat. Even then, months before the brain
tumors, and hospital visits, I somehow knew
it was the last time I would walk in her shoes.
And so I walked the Way of Sorrows, missing
her impending absence even as she stood beside
me, as my hair turned white with grief for what
I knew was soon to come.
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 2:47 PM UTC
I am bound to her by blood,
this madwoman of a city
with eyes that see
a comatose heart, with no feeling.
One, two, three hundred,
a thousand —
we are all carbon copies
of her silicone ******* collagen cheeks
teeth bleached whiter
than the pearls we adorn ourselves with.
I was a child
when I left this madwoman,
mother of my younger years.
I left her drinking cuba libres,
stirring ice with her finger,
her nails crimson red.
I said, “Goodbye, I am leaving you.”
She turned her face back to the barrio
and said, “Adios, Muchacha.”
Years later, I look back on my youth.
I remember her as the mother I lost
the sister I never had
the woman I was afraid to become.
If only she knew
how easy she was to leave
how difficult she was to forget.
Jul 19, 2016
Jul 19, 2016 at 9:09 AM UTC