Poetry of Brenda Cardenas > Woodland Pattern Book Center

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Brenda Cardenas

Brenda Cardenas' chapbook of poems From the Tongue of Brick and Stone appeared from Momotombo Press (Institute for Latino Studies, University of Notre Dame) in 2005. She is co-editor of Between the
Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest (MARCH/Abrazo Press) and has twice received Illinois Arts Council finalist awards in Poetry. Cardenas' poems have appeared in U.S. Latino Literature Today, Poetic Voices Without Borders, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, RATTLE: Poetry for the 21st Century, Prairie Schooner, and others. With Sonido Ink(quieto), a spoken word and music ensemble, Cardenas released the CD Chicano, Illnoize: The Blue Island Sessions (DeSPICable Records, 2001). She currently lives in Milwaukee and teaches English at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

Empty Spaces

Brenda Cardenas

She is a switchblade afraid of the hint in a two-second glint that might spring you an arm's length away. I fear. She kisses close, to shut the open gate of hunger, heavy-footed as history perched on her chest. Empty spaces. She never rests. Stumbling through the clutter of language, she rummages cramped closets for her lost sounds—igriegas y erres—tumbling like marbles spilled in the attic. Spaces I fear. She main lines white noise—a guest persistent as rain flooding her muted room. Spaces. She adds another hue to the walls crawling with orange and blue that zig zag the curves of her world to the ceiling. I fear empty spaces. She is reeling in a ravenous subjunctive that would doubt its own bones were it not for her grip slipping from your moist shoulders to the winter of metal bedposts. Spaces I empty. She grinds against you minding only the bland blue sky that filters through the O'Keefe hollow of her pelvis. I empty fear. In this abyss, she comes, braying the silence away.

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