Century Plant: A Poem

By: Isabella Salcedo

on the drive,
we pass house
after house. my aunt
says she knows
these Columbia backroads
like tiptoeing through
a lego-scattered living room
at midnight for ice cream,
like an old dog
finds your feet.
well, not really.
she knows them
like the people
she met on home
visits as a nurse
back before this trip
across town for tacos
as she unfolds
candid truth like
the solemn century
plant, a wide-based 
agave, shooting straight
up, blooming but once
at the end of a thirty-year life.
my aunt knows this
plant like she knows
these tacos’ll be good,
tacos'll be filling, 
so she keeps driving
till we can both sip
on guava soda
with our eyes closed.

Isabella Salcedo is a poet from Virginia who is in constant search of silver linings. Her MFA Creative Writing thesis insists on love in the world post-everything: post-loss, lockdown, protesting, and grief. Her poetry can be read in the upcoming edition of Zaum and watched through UVA Today.