To the One: A Poem

By: Isabella Salcedo

To the One

You've given me a camera like you’ve given me many things: a bike for us to ride the languid neighborhood streets, the fresh wood to make a bookshelf for my childhood bedroom, the paint, to paint it. I am finally old enough to regret the things I didn’t cherish and now I say “thank you” on average 37 times a day to anyone who will listen: to the barista at my college campus, to the one who held the door for me two seconds longer than I would have, to the one who hands me a flyer that I don’t want, to the one who waves me over on Sunday morning to enter their place of worship. I wave and yell “thank you” even as I keep walking. To the doctor who wishes me well as I leave the office, the cashier who hands me my receipt, the one who moves their backpack on the metro, the toddler who hands me dead dandelion after dead dandelion, picking them as I say, thank you, thank you.

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.