Stir Well, Serve Hot

Evan Martinez

All I’ve ever wanted is to crawl inside the shelter of a perfect word / feel around /
Peel back rotting layers of the c o m m a until god’s handwriting reveals itself / dripping /
Lick it clean while I listen and give life to another birdsong
I can’t comprehend

My mom’s first language is spanish,
My sibling says: actually our first language was ripped from our tongue and used as seasoning.

I think: Mmmm, adobo y sazón

The dish in question is irredeemable /
Sometimes I bare my teeth / rip tendons from my legs / plant them in the ground / vow to never
forget that there are still people speaking our first language /
We have just been severed from them /

We / of this mid-atlantic / so named for a stretch of coast in an unspeakable nation / Tethered /
or something like it / unweaving threads / or something like them /
Until a basket is just fruits [mango] and sacrifice [leaving your children in Tunja and coming to
this kountry and not seeing them until they can articulate
how much it hurt when they watched you go]

And during kickball I learned / We are not from here / and we are dirty / and
the first lesson in dominance: don’t make your home in the weeds / they are tasteless

The amerikan imagination is flaccid / bland /
Filled with crunched up marbles and geriatric maggots cannibalizing the prenatal

The truth is that colonizing half the world was a vengeful beggar’s errand /
But violent heritage / gnarled gums won’t write themselves / into reality

The truth is that yt ppl should stop making food blogs / writing long stories with unsavory
conclusions that they should try their hand at jerk chicken or panang curry or arroz con
gandules /
But they will not be told no / conquest is unwinnable

It takes them 500 words to finally get to the recipe and when my sibling reads the
ingredients they say: for the love of god, someone get the spices.