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Venezuela

May 13, 2017/in Poetry, Poetry, Summer-Fall 2017 / by Laura Sobbott Ross

in the 1960s

The name itself is a kingdom
brambled over in exotics,
where fish & birds read like orchids,
and an oil-flat sea’s gone dull
beside a land possessed of its own
drumbeat—fist to heart, a howled
& primal green. After all, Amazon
sounds more tribal than rivered.
Venezuela, its new language
an assignation of pleasantries,
and even color. Gracias. Azul.
It was all I could do as a child to count
in newly named values. Oleander,
my mother said, meaning danger.
It’s the gravity, she’d say, handing
me a comb. Venezuela on a map
was a cluster of grapes inside
a larger cluster of grapes—
that southern continent, feral & hemispheric.
Nat King Cole crooned from a needle
threading my father’s album on the turntable.
A circle un-brailling inward
until it bumped a shoreline of static.
Whole notes opening in concentricity.
Magnética. That was Venezuela.
The rain fell in seasons that cleaved glass
puddles from streets. Black flies
leaving ripples and chewing our calves.
What was the equator anyway,
but a line as thin as water skin
between ourselves looking in
and a mirrored sky; the same template
of tree and cloud, the same rainbow
hoisted like a banner from a distant
fiesta. Only here, in Venezuela,
the iguanas dragoned casually under
the coconut palms, and the thick rot
of frogs plastered the gullies.
Sun, a filigree loose across terrazzo.
Look up. You could bless yourself
on the Southern Cross between the monkey
bars. Whirlwinds reversing directions.
Epicentro. Every ceiling revolving
in fan blades—the slow tick
of shadow and stir. Always.
Even while you slept. Be careful,
said the mothers to the fathers,
home for siestas and lifting us children,
combed and giddy, into the current.
Roll your tongue when you say
tierra; yes, it means earth, niños,
but look how beautiful the swirl
of both hemispheres of stars.

 

Laura Sobbott RossLaura Sobbott Ross teaches English to ESOL students at Lake Technical College in central Florida, and has worked as a writing coach for Lake County Schools. Her writing appears in Blackbird, Meridian, The Florida Review, Calyx, Natural Bridge, and many others. She was named as a finalist for the Art & Letters Poetry Prize 2016, and has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. Her poetry chapbooks are A Tiny Hunger, from YellowJacket Press, and My Mississippi, from Anchor & Plume Press.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png 0 0 Vicki Miller https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Vicki Miller2017-05-13 10:56:282017-12-07 08:43:45Venezuela

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

How to Kill a Cat, or How to Prepare for CATastrophe

March 10, 2023/in Blog / Meghan McGuire
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The Night I Want to Remember

December 16, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Sanaz Tamjidi
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From Paper to the Page

November 18, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Annie Bartos
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Point Break & Top Gun Are More Than Homoerotic Action Movies

March 3, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Michaela Emerson
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Mending the Heart and Slowing Down: Reintroducing Myself to Mexican Cooking

October 7, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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The Worth of a Billionaire’s Words

September 23, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Kirby Chen Mages
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

On Such a Full Sea Are We Now

March 17, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Jemma Leigh Roe
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The Russian Train

February 24, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Cammy Thomas
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Still Life

October 31, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Daniel J. Rortvedt
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

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