Not that kind! The gutter
is no place for a poem
unless you’re on a ladder
in September because the river
of fire in the trees
dropped on your roof
a month early. Tomorrow
you will wake up,
carry your hot chai
to the window and stare
at the bags of leaves
you left on the curb,
a white mustache of foam
on your lip like your grandpa’s
who you think about every day,
the one who liked to say,
Patience. There’s more time
than there is life.
Tomás Q. Morín
Tomás Q. Morín is the author most recently of the poetry collection Machete and Where Are You From: Letters to My Son. His debut novel Cat Love is forthcoming from Pantheon in 2026. He is a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches at Rice University.
