Well, here's one to grandma, one I promised her.
She has a thing for chili I prefer red chili over my eggs
and potatoes for breakfast.
Red chile ristras decorate my door, dry on my roof,
and hang from eaves.
They lend open air vegetable stands historical grandeur,
and gently swing with an air of festive welcome.
I can hear them talking in the wind
these old haggard, yellowed, crisp, rasp,
and tongues of old men, licking it up.
But grandma, she loves green chili.
When I visit her she holds the green chili pepper in her
wrinkled hands as if sane, ah, , voluptuous, masculine.
An era of authority and youth simmers from its swan neck
stem, tapering to a flowery collar,
fermenting resinous spice.
A well-dressed gentleman at the door.
My grandmother takes sensuously into her hand.
Rubbing its firm, glossed sides.
Caressing the oily rubbery serpent
with mouthwatering fulfillment.
Fondling its curves with gentle fingers.
It's bearing magnificent and taut, as flanks
of a tiger in mid-leap, she thrusts her blade into
and cuts it open with lust on her hot mouth.
Sweating over the stove, bandanna around her forehead,
and mysterious passion on her face,
she serves me a green chili con carne between soft warm leaves
of corn tortillas con arroz y frijoles, her sacrifice
to her little prince.
I slurp my plate the last bit of tortillas.
Mouth burns and I hiss.
Drink tall glass of cold water.
All over New Mexico, sunburned men and women
drive rickety trucks stuffed with gunny sacks of green chile
from Belen, Veguita, Laguna, Isleta, Willard, Estancia, San
Antonito Socorro, from fields to roadside stands.
You see them roasting green Chili and screen-sided homemade
barrels.
For $1 a bag they are sold and grandma
and I relive this old beautiful ritual again and again.
[APPLAUSE]