Knees in the Garden

By Christina Rodriguez

Knees in the Garden is a moody caress of a collection. Rodriguez exemplifies a clear-cut devotion for the intricacies words can convey. These pieces traverse crescendos of melancholic and passionate loves to dance through the kindling of a righteous feminine rage. This work is a testament to self-respect and control and the ability to surrender

• Language: English
• Publisher: Querencia Press, LLC
• Release date: Jan 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798330255924

Book preview

Knees in The Garden

Knees in the Garden

Christina D. Rodriguez

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Querencia Press, LLC

Chicago, Illinois

QUERENCIA PRESS

© Copyright 2023

Christina D. Rodriguez

All Rights Reserved

No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the author.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

ISBN 978 1 959118 10 7

www.querenciapress.com

First Published in 2023

Querencia Press, LLC

Chicago, IL

Printed & Bound in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Preface

Daily Bread

The Echo

Heartcode (Censored)

Confessions

Repent

Holy

Waxing Sienna

The Wane of Her

Worship

Fields of Beloved Blame

The truth about poems

Mujer of Combustible Living

mother never told me stories

Loose

Red, Red Rose

Daughters of Tamar

Prize: Fat Girl

Goddess

Morning Rivers

Good girls aren't supposed to beg for water

The Scapegoat

Here

Pink Tuesday

The Ways We Ask For It

Beatitudes of a Lingering Dystopia

Emotive Tender

Poster Child of Magdalene

I call bluff on the art of letting go.

Drift

Wisdom

Puzzle: Silence

Phases

Mad Gowns

An Inventory of Your Omentum

Dot

Meanwhile,

Remains

Oracular Spectacular

Sources of Rays

Audacity

Knees in The Garden

Mother Tongue

Le Duc

Coffee Hour and Street Fairs

Movie Night

Bare Bones

Music Lessons

Sunken Ships

Bear Witness

Choices

Driving to Chicagoland

Swedish Sphinx: The Wikipedia of Garboism, A Cento

Sunday, Boiling

Evolution

Jas on the day you break your heart

/ˌrēyo͞oˈnīt/

Gospel

We Talk

Thirst

Falling in The Internet

Grasping the Mirage

In between

Dear Person: Epistle #1

Wildflowers in Your Head

Fleeting

Unfinished

Notes on Previous Publication

Acknowledgments

Preface

The desire to be loved...

I was once told that I have a melancholy way about life. Maybe it comes from the trauma of a childhood that was filled with rejection by my peers because of my appearance or the lack of love between my parents and their lack of ability to walk away from something that wasn’t working sooner. Witnessing hurt, witnessing bad decisions, witnessing cruelty without thought. In front of me, in the flesh, love was received cautiously.

My first safe love was music. I didn’t always have a lot, but I was always surrounded by ways to hear music. My most precious gift was a Sony Walkman that I received at the age of six. My mom, often listening to the oldies station, set my radio there. Curiously, as any six-year-old would do, I wandered away to another point of the dial. CD 101.9, the smooth jazz station of New York. It was the first kind of love that wasn’t cautious. I love all types of music, but smooth jazz takes me to a place I was not able to describe succinctly until my late twenties, when my pen became my ultimate instrument and way to love.

I started writing poems at the age of thirteen. I was already a vivacious reader and wrote plenty of diary entries, love notes to undeserving little boys and even silly short stories that won a prize or two. But with poetry, I could roll everything into one perfect (or at least perfect to me) poem and maybe someone would fall madly in love with my words, my wit, my confessions…with me. I wanted to be seen in the way listening to music made me feel, in the way reading books transformed me