VIVA NOLA APRIL MAY 2023
Bilingual variety magazine - Connecting the Latino community to New Orleans, Louisiana, and beyond. Learn about the unique culture of New Orleans and relevant topics.
Bilingual variety magazine - Connecting the Latino community to New Orleans, Louisiana, and beyond. Learn about the unique culture of New Orleans and relevant topics.
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The Poet’s Corner<br />
Cristina del Canto Blanton<br />
Cristina del Canto Blanton is an award-winning poet<br />
and author based in New Orleans. Her work, in both<br />
English and Spanish, has been featured in literary<br />
journals across the globe, including a 1st place Mariner<br />
Poetry Award for her poem “Caracas.”<br />
Originally from Venezuela, Cristina studied creative writing<br />
at New York University and is working on her first novel,<br />
scheduled for publication in 2024. Her published work is<br />
available at www.wordsbycristina.com<br />
Caracas<br />
I am bound to her by blood,<br />
this madwoman of a city<br />
with eyes that see,<br />
a comatose heart, with no feeling.<br />
One, two, three hundred,<br />
a thousand —<br />
we are all carbon copies<br />
of her silicone breasts, collagen cheeks<br />
teeth bleached whiter than the pearls<br />
we adorn ourselves with.<br />
I was a child<br />
when I left this madwoman,<br />
mother of my younger years.<br />
I left her<br />
drinking cuba libres,<br />
stirring ice with her finger,<br />
her nails crimson red.<br />
I said, “Goodbye, I am leaving you.”<br />
She turned her face back to the barrio<br />
and said, “Adios, Muchacha.”<br />
Years later, I look back on my youth.<br />
I remember her as<br />
the mother I lost,<br />
the sister I never had,<br />
the woman I was afraid to become.<br />
If only she knew<br />
how easy she was to leave,<br />
how difficult she was to forget.
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