Two Poems, by Alessandra Castellanos

POEMA CRÓNICA

My poem has stopped listening to me.
Like an irritable teenager who wears
noise-cancelling headphones,
she doesn’t hear me,
she doesn’t care,
she doesn’t even bother to blink.

She’s got an identity crisis,
calls herself A Memory I Don’t Remember,
wears a red and white striped shirt
she stole
from me
when I was two years old.

She carries with her a photograph
she tore from a roll of film
I never developed.

I follow her to Griffith Park,
the Venice High School Pool,
and Zuma Beach.
I watch her climb the trees
at El Dorado East Regional Park,
she carves her name
onto every bough.
Ducks follow me, following the poem.

She stops to eat paletas de vainilla,
I move to catch her,
try and trap her,
keep her warm between my palms.
She’s sticky
but like the small fence lizards
of the Hollywood Hills,
she slips through my fingers.

I don’t see her
for days,
weeks.

Poema Crónica.

Tonight, my poem creeps back into the house
like a burglar dressed all in black.
I watch her as she stops
to watch
my mother sleep.

Breathing in tandem,
they flicker in darkness,
the image leaving me
with paper cuts,
my poem, watching my mother,
her breathing soft
her tail whipping the air 

AFTER WE LEFT MY FATHER

His mother
adopted two cats,

one made of ginger
one made of smoke.

Queens Liquor Market on Venice
Blvd. doubled in revenue,

and spread across Los Angeles
the homeless opened their arms,

licking their wounds,
embracing his cries.

My mother and brother and I looked
at one another.

We poured firewater,
mechanic’s grease,
charcoal drawings,
broken teeth.

We poured sweet wine

onto the ground at the corner
of Western and Institute Pl.

and the few unprocessed
memories I had of my father

lifted
like resplendent tail feathers

of the world’s quetzales,
filling an empty McDonald’s
novelty glass,

overflowing,
and scattering downwind. 

Los Angeles native, Alessandra Castellanos, has been a gardener, barista, housekeeper, nanny, and medical courier. She writes poetry, fiction, and memoir and loves reading paranormal romance novels. She is a neophyte art collector, poetry daemon, movie buff, Valkyrie, and keeper of cats, dogs, turtles, ceramics, and other small things. Alessandra’s work has appeared in The Offing, Northridge Review, Exposition Review, Drunken Boat, Lunch Ticket, RipRap Journal, Chaparral, Duende, The Round and elsewhere. She was a 2017 featured reader at Lit Crawl L.A., with her poem, “In Darkness with the Ramirez Sisters,” and a 2018 featured artist for the Viva La Muxer arts and music festival with her poem “Madre.” Check her out at alessandracastellanos.com.