Christine Garcia – Poetry

Gabriel

You make me feel as though I cannot breathe,

and in this state of asphyxiation

parrots, bananas, riverboats, and penetration

move across my mind.

Gabriel, from Aracatacas, Bogota, Mexico City,

your articulate infatuation with home and with death

pulls me through the destruction of my lovers’ infidelities.

Murdered feelings leave the stench of a hundred years across these pages

and I owe my persistence of survival to your beautiful words.

Christine Garcia is a West Texas transplant to the beautiful city of Albuquerque where she is completing a PhD in Rhetoric and Writing at the University of New Mexico. While her scholarly writing focuses on Chicana Rhetoric(s) and Rhetoric and Composition Theory, her personal writing tends to fall the way of love and the Southwest. Aside from finishing her dissertation, which surveys Chicana Rhetoric and explores the work of Dolores Huerta, Christine spends her time enjoying Albuquerque’s vibrant art scene and making day trips throughout Aztlán.