elegy for lucille
Rachelle Cruz
i stole your book of light
from a roommate’s shelf
and climbed into the fire
escape
the book slipped from
my fingers spilling ash
on the sidewalk
the city crying
let it, let it
another for lucille
By Rachelle Cruz
“Bring a gift for a poet in Ramallah, Palestine.”
-Elmaz Abinader
fighting dragons tooth by tooth
we light a candle at the edge
of our voice an opening a calling
a chichimeca song of blood
and sea a sleeve of pens carried
a ziploc bag of soil from san
juan a book of poems
by kahlil gibran
of unfilled books ancient sound
and wave my gift your words
ringing through my chest a gong
calling the dragons to come
rest awhile we dance sing
at the mouth of your cave
lit by the slowdance of flame
Rachelle Cruz is from Hayward, California. Her work has been featured in Muzzle Magazine, Splinter Generation, and KCET’s Departures Series, amongst other publications. She hosts The Blood-Jet Writing Hour Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio. An Emerging Voices Fellow, a Kundiman Fellow and a VONA writer, she lives in Riverside, California.
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