Poem: Because papa can’t lift anything

Angel. Photo: Gerald Farinas.

“Go help your grandpa,”
Grandma Val says, voice gentle but firm,
like the lake wind after a storm—
still charged, but steady.
“Aunty Deborah’s bags are heavy, and Papa can’t lift anything.”

Angel stretches their long arms,
bones still catching up with their spirit,
seventeen years of growing not just taller,
but becoming.
Milwaukee to Oak Park,
a summer trip, a family jaunt for Papa’s birthday
with O’Hare still shivering from lightning delays
and suitcases soaked in runway sweat.

They pads softly
the cicadas droning like distant memories,
and sees Papa—getting ready to pick up the bags,
his body stiffening,
intent to do as always behind his eyes.
A nod passes between them,
the quiet kind of love that says
I would but I shouldn’t.

Because Papa can’t lift anything,
not anymore.
Not the bags, not the older knees,
not the years he carried
everyone else’s weight.

So Angel does.
They hefts the worn suitcase,
the one Deborah swears by.
Drags it up the narrow stairs,
their arms trembling, not with weakness
but with the knowledge
that they can.

Because Papa can’t lift anything—
not the changing world that keeps asking
for new names,
new truths,
new ways to be strong.
But Angel can.
And they does.

They climbs.
The stairs, the years,
the expectation to disappear.
Instead, they steps forward,
into the house, into themself,
into a future
where they’re no longer a secret
but a story worth carrying.

And behind them,
Papa watches from the door,
his hands still,
his heart lifted.