Compliments

By Carmen Tafolla

They say I don’t look thirty
They also say
I don’t look Mexican.
They mean them, I guess
as compliments.

If that is so,
then it must be
complimentary
to not be
thirty
or Mexican.

Therefore,
I guess,
they don’t
(as much)
like people
who are over
thirty
or too
Mexican.

But now they know
and therefore, I guess
it means
that now
they don’t
(as much)
like me.

This poem is from Tafolla’s collection Sonnets to Human Beings

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