Unforgettable Sardines

BY TEZOZOMOC

We eat

Sol-Mex Sardines

because the cow’s

milk is desiccate.

We eat Sardines

packed in brazen

symmetrical oval coffins.

Sardines

stowed in blood,

blood, blood sauce,

because the fields

are bone-dry.

The bean vines

have dried

along the with

the corn stalks,

and our stomach’s

empty,

fallow as the

field where the dog

looks edible,

and the wind blown

dust burns flesh

around the neck.

Here we eat

Sardines,

Sol-Mex Sardines,

with their yellow metal taste.

Here we sit

around the table

not able to admit

the delirium from

bean soup disenthrall

and the suffocation

of incendiary gas.

The after

taste of sardines

last for days,

beyond lost

relationships,

beyond the etiquette

of good taste,

the beliefs of

proper hygiene,

But mostly we

eat Sol-Mex Sardines,

not to forget that on the

days when the

bean soup pot runs dry

we have eaten.

Tezozomoc is a Los Angeles Chicano Poet and 2009 Oscar-Nominated Activist whose work has been featured in Rigorous Journal, Mom Egg Review, Los Angeles Poets for Justice, I Can't Breathe: A Social Justice Literary Magazine, and others. Their poetry has also been featured in Gashes!: Poems and Pain from the Halls of Injustice (a collection of poetry published by Floricanto Press) and the 2021 Boundless Anthology.

Tags: poem poetry Tezozomoc