Claudia Castro Luna

Claudia Castro Luna is the Poet Laureate of Washington State (2018-2020) She served as Seattle’s first Civic Poet from 2015-2017 and is the author of Killing Marías (Two Sylvia’s Press) and of This City (Floating Bridge Press).

Born in El Salvador she came to the United States in 1981 fleeing civil war. Living in English and Spanish, Claudia writes and teaches in Seattle where she gardens and keeps chickens with her husband and                                                             their three children.

Additional Credits:  Artist in Residency at School of Visual Concepts – Seattle
Creator of Seattle Poetic Grid
Contact:  castroluna.com
cipotabajolaluna.blogspot.com
@ClaudiaC_L

Our marriage began
the two of us on a carousel
young and lost and spinning
to the pretty music, sitting on griffins and dragons
with wooden wings and static claws

Once he introduced me to an older colleague
“Meine Verlobte,” he said
the old man took my hand with reverence to his lips
and my husband smiled in that way of his–
back and forth between us, love,
a champagne fueled badminton birdie
flying higher and higher on late summer nights

the faster the merry-go-round
the more he liked to stay on it
the same piped in music
screaming inside his head
melancholy and melody wrung out of it
like water from a dirty mop

the day the carousel spun too fast for me
he was busy spinning inane tales of power
stories of winning after losing
jobs and so many other things
I let go of the drop rod, hurdled across the Atlantic
orbit-less, like a comet without a tail

He spun on, bottle after bottle
drag after drag, year after year
chiming beer under the canopy’s striped firmament
he stayed alone with his addiction
with only the chipped menagerie to lean on

I hope his last ride was superlative and fast
a deep maze of flamboyant fantasies
wind flapping shirt and pant leg
“Look how my slip on shoes don’t fall!”
he would have shouted at my ghost twirling next to him
and breaking into his toothy smile, the gap in the middle
a channel for the dove inside him to fly through

 

This poem was previously published in Psychological Perspectives.

felt the tension slip from my shoulders
like the paisley piano scarf from the curve of a grand
the pressure on my temples like calipers
two padded hammers’ prolonged strike–sostenuto
until I step over–pianissimo
the thick-felted threshold

though the clipped action of the outer world dances
in a jig a frolic rondo or barcarolle
persuades like the carousel’s calliope and mirrors
the delight of a quick jaunt in a sparkling swirl of notes and timbres
the minute soundboards of my ears’ drums
tire quickly signal retreat

I step into quiet when I open my door
the orchestra of a suitably rowdy life
fades into the walls
clocks tick faucets drip furnace hums
and the warm body of dog dreams
in soft whimpers on the couch beside me

 

The title of this poem is after Sherman Alexie.