Lydia Cortes
Find the Form to Love Your Life (Section 6)
Almost drowning out the colored chemicals the crystals So lovely in purpled reddish orangeness flakes encrusted With jewels of sugar azucar is the word Celia Cruz was Known for AZUCAR how many times did she cry out her Cry was known to all who knew her adored her music Her voice her rhythm her blued Africaness her negritude Azucar azucar so much azucar en el Kool Aid we drank Envelops and envelops made into pitchers and pitchers Of sugar technicolored water in the summer On the fifth floor tenement on Stockton On the third floor tenement on Ryerson so much ice in the pitchers Cool in our aluminum tumblers in all colors I always wanted the golden one The aluminum so cold to the touch to the cheek to the Fingers but in the winter waiting for the heat to come On again waiting for the hot water to return so we could Bathe so we could take off the layers the pajamas the under
Editor’s Note: “Find the Form to Love Your Life” is a long poem that we are posting in eleven sections on consecutive Saturdays.
Lydia Cortes is the author of the poetry collections Lust for Lust (Ten Pell Books, 2002) and Whose Place (Straw Gate Books, 2009). Her work appears in the anthologies Puerto Rican Poetry: An Anthology from Aboriginal to Contemporary Times (U Mass Press, 2006) and Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York 1980-2012 (Editorial Campana, 2012). Recent work has appeared in Upstreet and on the Black Earth Institute’s 30 Days Hath September poetry feature curated by Patricia Spears Jones.
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