Cintia Santana
welling
i.
what
we would cup
in our hands
surrounds us
surrounds
the very land
from which we dig
ii.
delver, situate
within
narrowest
of centers
to know ourselves
engulfed
and uncontained
iii.
the first circle
the eye’s
horizon,
the limitless
mind
dreams
encompassing
iv.
when our eyes
open onto
openness
the horizon
the second
circle
forms
v.
from narrowest
of wells
groundswell
bound
and boundless
we drink
the ocean at our lips
Cintia Santana reads “welling”
Cintia Santana teaches fiction and poetry workshops in Spanish, as well as literary translation courses at Stanford University. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2020, Beloit Poetry Journal, Guernica, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, The Threepenny Review, West Branch, and other journals. Santana is the recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Her first poetry collection, The Disordered Alphabet, was published in September by Four Way Books and was short-listed for the CALIBA Golden Poppy Award in Poetry and received the silver medal for the 2023 North American Book Award in Poetry. Learn more at: www.cintiasantana.com