Arts Alive San Antonio

Today’s poem is by Octavio Quintanilla, the 2018-20 San Antonio Poet Laureate and the poetry editor of VOICES DE LA LUNA. And the art work is also Octavio’s. He calls his drawings/paintings “frontextos” and this one is named Los Dias Oscuros #29. (To read more about Octavio and his art, check out the Interview Express with him on this site.)

Loners on the Road
By Octavio Quintanilla

I’m not sure where
we’re going,
but all of us have known
a misery so
sweet we can’t
help but keep. 

We must all take
sides, I
suppose, or risk
ending forsaken
like the cows
clustering by
the barbed
wire fence.

Because it’s
cold, they offer
their udders
to their young and we
keep what we see
to ourselves.

We move
on, each
mile taking us
deeper into the
dusk reclining on
the horizon

like a young
and beautiful
lover, one
who always has
the right
words to say.