Am I Too Old To Carry?
Elizabeth Quiñones-Zaldaña
You are old, my love
but not too old to carry.
I do not tell you so
like this; instead
I rock you through
the moonlight hallway
nights we leave the windows open
the cool of the evening enters.
The silk of your father’s hair
slides from your forehead,
so long since last spring --
your limbs outpace
the remnant curls loosened
to a faint wave.
I forget, my love, I forget
whatever was so important
I could not keep from running.
Let me not lament
while you are here to ask me
simple questions
the kind better satisfied
by being brought through.
###
Elizabeth Quiñones-Zaldaña lives and writes in southern Nevada. Her poetry has been published in From Snowcaps to Desert Flats: An Anthology of Latino Writers in Nevada; Legs of Tumbleweeds, Wings of Lace: An Anthology of Literature by Nevada Women; Helen: a literary magazine and elsewhere. Her chapbook Bougainvillea was published by Tolsun Books in 2019.
You are old, my love
but not too old to carry.
I do not tell you so
like this; instead
I rock you through
the moonlight hallway
nights we leave the windows open
the cool of the evening enters.
The silk of your father’s hair
slides from your forehead,
so long since last spring --
your limbs outpace
the remnant curls loosened
to a faint wave.
I forget, my love, I forget
whatever was so important
I could not keep from running.
Let me not lament
while you are here to ask me
simple questions
the kind better satisfied
by being brought through.
###
Elizabeth Quiñones-Zaldaña lives and writes in southern Nevada. Her poetry has been published in From Snowcaps to Desert Flats: An Anthology of Latino Writers in Nevada; Legs of Tumbleweeds, Wings of Lace: An Anthology of Literature by Nevada Women; Helen: a literary magazine and elsewhere. Her chapbook Bougainvillea was published by Tolsun Books in 2019.
