Alfredo Antonio Arevalo
It’s Almost 10 O’Clock
Do you know where
I am tonight? Do you
know where I lie
most nights, prayerless
& making myself
a thermostat of angst?
Do you know what waiting
for 10 o’clock feels like—
waiting for a TV
voice to remind you that
you’re supposed to be
reminded about? I listen
because I’m obedient
& inside a home. In your
absence, I am minded.
I learned to expand
my definition of mother.
I don’t need you
to look for me among
the daunt of night.
I wait inside for dark
newscasts: homicides,
robberies, mother’s pleas
for her kidnapped
corazón. Do you know
I hate the news?
I hate waiting alone
for 10 o’clock. I hate being
reminded. Do you know
this is how you re-
mind me?
Alfredo Antonio Arevalo reads “It’s Almost 10 O’Clock”
Alfredo Antonio Arevalo is a queer Chicano writer from Fresno, California. He received his MFA from The University of Alabama, where he won two Jerome K. Phipps Poetry Prizes and a poets.org University & College Poetry Prize. You can find his poetry in The Maine Review, The Bilingual Review, Acentos Review, Common Ground Review, and elsewhere.