By Luis Daniel Salgado
When I was a boy
I was either a child eating bugs
or a child being eaten by bugs, but
now that I am older am I a man
who devours the world or am I a man
being devoured by the world?
Someone once told me that mothers
come from a different planet. And if she was correct
then my mother was a warrior from that planet.
And now that my mother is older the history
that is her face is starting to look like a worn map.
The hills that once were her cheeks now have roads
carved into them that tell her secrets.
The roots of her hair are starting to shimmer with silver
that she colors once she sees ten or more.
She no longer cares for long hair.
She says pelo largo is a young woman’s game.
In a few years she will be older than my grandmother
ever was.
Source: Poetry (February 2021)
Poet Bio
More Poems about Living
Meanwhile
From the Sky
When I die,
bury me in the sky—
no one is fighting over it.
Children are playing soccer
with empty bomb shells
(from the sky I can see them).
A grandmother is baking
her Eid makroota and mamoul
(from the sky I can taste them).
Teens are writing love...
More Poems about Relationships
Meanwhile
Water of the womb
It is winter in Anchorage, and I am only as tall as the shoveled snowbanks in the parking lot of the pink apartments. I am old enough to have chores but young enough not to fully understand frostbite. It is...