a poem of thanksgiving
shoes to protect my tender feet,
a campfire and its healing heat
a boat, and sail to make it heel
the compass, the sextant, and the wheel
a pen, with all its inky bliss
a big bear hug, a deep French kiss.
spectacles for my weary eyes
journalists, to help me realize
the on/off switch, zeroes and ones
spreadsheets, and balanced sums
big fluffy towels, to lie on hot sand
phone calls from friends, helping hands
the hot water heater, a convertible two-seater,
a syncopated beat, iambic pentameter
a passport, for when I need to roam
a light on, for when I come home
photographs to keep my memories true,
especially my fondest ones of you
slow dancing, with intimate grace,
a blanket, and its warm embrace,
a pillow for my sleepy head
and silence, after all is said.
I wrote this poem around Thanksgiving 2012, just reflecting on things, inventions, contributions to society that I am grateful for. Copyright 2012 Lupe Tucker.
View from the 4th Floor gallery of the Museum of Modern Art
Lupita Eyde-Tucker is a bilingual poet and translator raised in New Jersey and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the winner of the 2021 Unbound Book Festival Emerging Poet Award, the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize, and in 2018 was selected as an AWP Writer to Writer Mentee by poet Maggie Smith. In 2022 she was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize from Letras Latinas. Lupita is completing an MFA in Creative Writing - Poetry at the University of Florida, and will be a staff scholar at Bread Loaf Translators Conference in June 2023. 
Not Enough Poetry 