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.
![illustration of a black silhouette of a woman in front of a colorful landscape of palm leaves and other tree silhouettes. In her head is a depiction of a man and his son surrounded by starlight and butterflies with a crescent moon.](https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/cdn-test.poetryfoundation.org/content/images/2164087c85afe3a67c4bf88596649869a0b0d394.jpeg)
Source: Poetry (February 2021)
Poet Bio
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