In my father’s yard stood a plant, a tall beingwith large thorns jutting out of its arms.Thriving in the sombra, it made a friendin shadow. At the end of each extremity huddleda small cluster of red buds. Corona de Cristo—believed to bethe plant the Romans used to crown Jesus’s crucifixion.A magnificent halo of ruby blooms—small glistening gems of blood.The corona whispered sin as my eyes glided over its body—a treasure chest not meant to be split open, blood runningdown the forehead like dripping angrygold, beads of sweatlike diamonds gleaming.Guilt burned at my sternum as my index finger kissed a red bud.The first time I touched myself felt like this too —an ache for thorns.
Corona de Cristo
Bianca Alyssa Pérez
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“Corona de Cristo” from GEMINI GOSPEL: by Bianca Alyssa Pérez.
Published by Host Publications on April 8, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by Bianca Alyssa Pérez.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Bianca Alyssa Pérez (she/her) is a Latina poet, educator, and editor born and raised in Mission, Texas – a small southern town bordering Mexico. She holds her MFA in Poetry from Texas State University, where she also teaches and coordinates the MFA in Creative Writing program. She was the 2022-2023 Clark House Writer-In-Residence in Smithville, TX. Her chapbook, Gemini Gospel, is published with Host Publications. She is also the co-host of the horror podcast, Basement Girls, with writer, Steph Grossman. Find more chisme at her website: biancaalyssaperez.com.
Moving through grief and memory, this stunning debut collection takes us by the hand to experience all of what is sacred in the process of authentic self-discovery. Pérez’s poems boldly explore identity through her lineage of spirituality and Latina roots, even as they move into uncharted territory. In true Gemini fashion, the inherited self is entwined with the one that is discovered, loss is braided with luminous love, and no matter how deep grief runs, it brings us always back to tenderness: “It’s not easy / to remember to water the plants, / to shower and to forgive the body.” In elegizing her father, the poet expresses a tenderness that is so deeply touching to behold, it becomes a lesson in love itself: “The last thing we hope he hears / is the ocean & the sound of his boat’s hull / hitting a small wave and the seagulls— / god, I hope he hears the seagulls.”
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