Platano ambassador for the city Taste maker, stacker of meats, Plated in the crossroads of a country’s heart Raucous, fragrant, ...
Platano ambassador for the city
Taste maker, stacker of meats,
Plated in the crossroads of a country’s heart
Raucous, fragrant, brawling,
Sandwich of big bites
They tell me you are sloppy and I believe them, for I have seen your
grease paint wrists, dumpsters, and alleys luring rats to your doors.
And they tell me you are bastard and I answer: Yes, I have seen iceberg lettuce waste the precious space ‘tween plantains
And they tell me you are brutal and I reply: On the faces of those that consume you I have seen stupefying satisfaction
And having answered so I turn to all that sneer at this our sandwich, and I serve the sneer right back and to them say:
Come and show me another sandwich with lifted head singing slur so proud to be alive and fried and strong and clever.
Flinging reclaimed curses amid the toil of piling garlic upon platano upon cheese upon lettuce upon tomato upon onion upon sirloin, here is a tall bold hero set vivo against the little soggy sandwiches;
Fierce as prized fighter awaiting challenge, cunning as community pitted against colonizer,
Robbed,
Hustling,
Rewriting,
Providing,
Stacking, stumbling, restacking,
Diaspora in Styrofoam
Under the terrible burden of history laughing
A laughter that shakes streets, parks, hips, taste buds
That builds Lincoln, and Wicker, and Humboldt and Logan
Squared up as a fighter with the pulse of its people, the heart of its gente
Laughing at conquest and conquistador
Ambassador, taste maker, stacker of meats
Plated at the center of its countries’ hearts
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