A Recent Favorite

OK, Josh; OK, Mark. You want sex? You want culinary poetics? Here's a poem I like from Sarah Cortez's very fun book How to Undress a Cop. I have no idea how scandalous or offensive it might be to students; to me, it's one of those poems that starts out slow, but ends perfectly, just perfectly:

Late Night Torta

I won't take you
as a lover
unless you eat with me
at my favorite taqueria.

I have to see you
crunch into jalapenos,
smell vinegary comino seeds,
sink teeth into carrot wheels
tasting like fire.

I want to see your nostrils
flare before biting
into a torta. Inhaling
sultry garlic seeped with
tomato inside the meat.
A dark layer of frijoles
cushoning crisp, thin-cut lettuce.
White crema, sassy and rich.

Your lips will redden
from the salsa. Faint sweat
will bead above your moustache.
I will watch the tattoos on your arms
swim above your ungiving muscles
in the bright pink and green lights.

The Virgen on the cash register table
will smile behind
her dark Indian eyes. She has
an angel to lift her
with his wide-flighted wings.
As you will lift me later
with your tongue.