PELU FLonio4 INTERNATIONAL UNIvenstrY ‘Miami’ public research university April 1, 2010 Mr, Federico Lastra 12731 SW 27th St. Miami, FL 33175 Dear Federico: Congratulations! You have been selected as the First Place winner in the Undergraduate Poetry Division of the 2010 FIU Student Literary Awards Contest for your poem "CVS". We ‘would like to invite you to attend the Writers on the Bay reading on Thursday, April 1, 2010. ‘The reading will be at 8:00 p.m. in the FIU Biscayne Bay Campus Bookstore. Your award letter will be distributed at that time. ‘Asa FIU student and FIU employee, your award money in the amount of $50.00 will be disbursed to you in the form of financial aid as per the FIU Foundation Office regulations. Since this process can take a while, your patience is appreciated. Ifyou have any questions, please feel free to call the Biscayne Bay Campus English Department at (305) 919-5857. erely, Bong John Dufresne, Professor Creative Writing Program Departmene of English College of Ars and Seiencss 3000 N.E. 11st Steet, ACL-335 + North Miami, FL 33181 # Tel (303) 919-5857 + Fax (305) 919-5734 » wnw.fu.edul~2010 FIU Literary Awards Contest Tom Healy, Judge for Poetry First Place in the Undergraduate Division: Federico Lastra Title of Poem: “CVS” ‘The hands-down winner, though, is [Federico] Lastra. I want to hear these astonishingly full and accomplished poems performed. They have an epic scale, a richness and accuracy of description, and such a smart sense of how music that can be shaped out of narrative and rhyme. But unlike so many spoken word poems where it isn’t easy to tell the dancer from the dance, these poems work beautifully on the page. I will never be able to walk into CVS again without remembering this voice of dignity and hardship and wanting to rip open a box of little yellow marshmallow chicks to share and devour,cvs Federico R Lastra 24 March 2010 Officially my holidays seem to have begun right around mid-September, when | entered CVS and saw an animated 6f¢ tall jolly Saint Nick, ringing his bell by my pills. Found him standing next to a Jack-O-Lantern full of shiny laminated tacky florescent, multi-flavored future dental visits. Tooth decaying, over-priced brand name treats, had a choice between unappetizing generic candy, that gets your house egged, or the well known name brands, that even make the devil sing in a sweet tone. | grabbed the Hershey's Fun Bag, because my front door was just done in gold leaf, figured that | didn’t want to spend the evening having to atone for cheap candy that was going to cause egg shelled Halloween grief. ‘Another month had gone by and it was time to drag my ass back down to the pharmacy and get a refill on my hypertension pills, white uncoated, tiny litle resolutions until the extra weight comes off. Need to shed a pound ‘or two, maybe much more than a few or just until my reflection isn’t so bloated. It’s pretty hard to try to stay on a diet when the CVS stores are spraying air fresheners that smell like cinnamon apple pie, and also displaying food scented body sprays, like creamy chocolate mousse, its cologne and its supposed to get you excited? That must be what makes me prone to want some pumpkin pie after a good porn. There’s an idea, food as a motif for holiday sexual metaphors like “stuff the turkey” or “split the wishbone.” If giggling while we cook, family don’t ask, lets avoid Thanksgiving grief. Once again, 30 days have flown by and my empty pilled little caramel brown flask must be filled again. This time its % store that is entirely devoted ‘to Christmas, it’s like the north pole threw up at CVS; but, you can’t frown, it’s the spirit of the season, even in Miami, the 90 degree, #1 voted destination for New York's finest leathery skinned, early bird bargain buffeting, heavily make-up faced, beach combing, overly zealous and incessantly complaining visitors, that spend their days whining about how nothing is as good as back home. ‘Those high pitched nasal voices hit your ears like a screeching tone deaf cyclone. Although still paying off last years gifted charges, in debited chimed disbelief, I took advantage of sales on tapered holly berry candles and the holiday gnome. The house must look good enough to avoid Christmas spirit criticism and grief.My generic monthly mission for Atenolol, my miraculous lab created compound, trails that return to CVS. Greeted by % off price signs on all the badly promoted remnants of the stuff even Kwanzanta wouldn’t put in his sack. Tub piled mound of chocolate foil wrapped reindeers and skeletons. Chipped green and red coated holiday colored M&iM’s and other sunken sweet treasures. Dangling and swaying from the corner isle are streamers and glittered black and silver paper hats saying “Happy New Year!” Complete with coordinating, sparkled polyurethane foam centerpieces, plates and napkins, streamers, some even light up when their blown, with its matching plasticized table cloth; which, | used to bundled it all into a sheaf and dragged it to the counter, along with a box of sparkling wine, for my very own bargain basement, live within my means way of dealing with last year’s grief. With last year’s prescription expired and no time for appointments, | had to hound my doctor to just fax over the order, since he usually requires that he be visited in person, but he made an exception, again, after all, it’s a pill, nota flesh wound. Thanks to the CVS pharmacist and countless repeated phone calls, its crisis averted. For a split second | thought I was seeing red, maybe because of sharply fluctua blood pressure or simply because | was facing the crimson heart shaped dismaying boxed reminders of lovelessness. Suffering from symptomatic singles syndrome, spending February 14th with a hollow chocolate, tooth bitten, headless cupid, all alone on the couch sob singing to Foreigner’s “! Want to Know What Love Is,” handkerchief soaked in snot, while a Wild Irish Rose and maraschino cherry smeared mouth moans out the names of all the men who dumped you and brought nothing but grief. Depressed quest for discount valentine chocolate, led me to marshmallow peeps aching to be eaten, those little yellow chicks wanted to be devoured and liberated from their suffocating plastic wrapped cages. The fluffy stuffed Peter rabbits were making me jones, for Cadbury créme filled eggs and tasty hollowed chocolate candy bunny ear cones. (Once again the store’s showcase is making me salivate like a caveman hunting beef, just walk thru the door, its as easy as Dino snagging Fred’s burger on the Flintstones. CVS is all | need for the holidays, blood pressure pills and comfort candy for the grief.