poems by christina quintana

Alchemy

When I think of you,

I write bad poetry

teeming with enough feeling

to turn it to gold

When I think of you,

I recall why love is important

down to the early morning resin

of chapped lips and no sleep

When I think of you,

I forget that it’s foolish;

I lose my sense of heartbreak;

I pummel through the stream of lights

as they shift to red,

kiss my hand,

and tap the roof of my proverbial car–

When I think of you,

I hear myself.

--

King or Queen(tana)


My last name
is different from yours,
though it looks the same

I see you—the little boy—
dreaming of sailboats and horses,
but becoming a doctor, instead;
covered up in other
with no way out

Oh, if I could take your hand,
you there, floating in sadness,
and tell you in perfect Spanish
that you are enough

No, your Jesus-colored skin
couldn't save you,
but it didn't make you wrong






Christina Quintana is a Brooklyn-based writer with Cuban and Louisiana roots. Her plays have been developed and produced in New Orleans, Atlanta, and New York City, and her poetry has been featured in Emotive Fruition, downtown poetry readings by New York actors, and is forthcoming in First Class Lit. She was a 2014 Lambda Literary Foundation Emerging Voices Fellow in Fiction and holds an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University. For more, visit: cquintana.com