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For My Cousin Manny Who Died in Prison

By Cintia Santana

inside
a cell
a heart

(my cousin’s)

inside
his heart
(inside
a cell)
a cluster
of cells

arrested

(like
a tack
to the heart
the arrest
inside
the heart)
     ;
(a tic
a tock
then not)

 

 

 

    he sold
   (my cousin)

   (he was
    not
    so old)

    inside
   (too)
    he sold

    inside
    a block
   (a cluster
    of cells)
    a sale
   (inside
    a cell)

    inside
    a block
   (block a)
    a cluster
—way back
    blocked—
    an attack
   (inside
    a cell)
    an arrest
   (inside)

my cousin
(a heart
inside)
(inside
a cell)
suffered

(ever
since
he was
not
so old)

inside
a cell
a heart

at rest

(my cousin’s)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listen as Cintia Santana reads “For My Cousin Manny Who Died in Prison.”
Added: Tuesday, September 6, 2022  /  Used with permission.
Cintia Santana
Photo by Rewa Bush.

Cintia Santana teaches fiction and poetry workshops in Spanish, as well as literary translation courses at Stanford University. A recipient of Djerassi and CantoMundo fellowships, her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2020, Beloit Poetry Journal, Guernica, The Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, The Threepenny Review, West Branch, and other journals. Her first poetry collection, The Disordered Alphabet, is forthcoming from Four Way Books (September 2023). To learn more visit her website.

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