“Aubade on the 8th Floor of St. Luke’s,” by J. Estanislao Lopez, appeared in the Fall 2018 – Caregiving Issue of MQR.
The hoopla of the morning sun interrupts
a man’s morbidity, doesn’t it?
—It has no capacity
to instruct us, whose hearts grow
irregular.
What’s inside my father doesn’t glow;
it oxidizes. The young swoon
at times, and, at times, winter-scented rain
takes the stage.
Sometimes, though, breathtaking
arrives too literally, or late.
The sun, worrisome
in elongated splendor.
—I never asked for beauty.
What it wants from me I’ll be damned
if I know.
Purchase MQR 57:4 or consider a one-year subscription. This poem appeared in the Fall 2018 – Caregiving Issue of MQR.
Image: Munch, Edvard. “The Sun.” 1911-16. Oil on canvas. University of Oslo, Norway.
J. Estanislao Lopez lives and teaches in Houston, TX. His work has appeared in Harvard Review, Ploughshares, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. He is currently an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson College. Find him on Twitter @EstanislaoPoet.
