Claudia Delfina Cardona: I Thought That Meant You Loved Me
Lottery
It’s Friday and you’re crossing
the street from Taco Haven and I don’t
remember how you looked or
whether your shirt was red or gray.
I only remember how you were telling
me stories about taking drugs with Aubrey
but I was more interested in admiring the craters
in your cheeks and how you accidentally
lit the cigarette filter again. How all
my memories of you include emerald
glass bottles and porches. And how we
walked by the river and you told
me, everything always leads back to you,
and I thought that meant that you loved
me but I am no longer 18 and know
that it means you will always exist
in my dead skin. My body
is made of winning scratch offs.
A lottery of 30,000
future poems shedding from my body
every day for the rest of my life.
How wonderful. All I have
to do is scrub my skin and write.
Claudia Delfina Cardona is a Xicana poet proudly born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She is a graduate of St. Mary’s University and a current poetry candidate at Texas State University, where she is the current Editorial Fellow for the Center for the Study of the Southwest. She is also the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Chifladazine, an online and print publication that is dedicated to showcasing the creative work of Latinas and Latinxs. The zine can be read at chifladazine.com. She is currently writing dreamy poetry in San Antonio and assisting with the organization of the San Anto Zine Fest in Fall 2017.
