Old Love
By Pat Mora
When my aunt died,
my uncle raised his hands
like a prophet in the Bible.
“I've lost my girl,” he said,
“I've lost my girl,” over and over,
shaking his head.
I didn't know what to say,
where to look,
my quiet uncle raising his voice
to silence.
My aunt was eighty-seven.
“Listen,” my uncle said, sighing
like a tree alone at night,
“women know.
Every midnight on New Year's Eve,
when others sang
and laughed and hugged,
your aunt looked at me,
tears in her eyes.
Sixty years.
She knew.
One day, we'd kiss good-bye.”
Copyright Credit: Pat Mora, "Old Love" from Dizzy in Your Eyes. Copyright © 2010 by Pat Mora. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Source: Dizzy in Your Eyes (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010)