Five Spot Politics Over Eggs

I had the breakfast special at Five Spot in Queen Ann, asked for the tortillas instead of toast and a side of salsa (a Pace Picante tasting type, by folks in San Antonion who know what peecaunee sauce should taste laahk!), looked up and saw Lady Liberty in her t-shirt which reads "EXCEPT IN ARIZONA."

I got up, centered my camera phone and took a picture, at which time a server with a nose ring asked, "Are you offended, or mad?"

I smiled and said, "Is the salsa a fake picante sauce?" She smiled and said, "Well you never know, some people get mad."

I wanted to ask if they were "mad" as the salsa or the defamation of the lady icon, or the bigoted law itself, or of the immigration debate that is never ending, or mad that extremely salted potatoes that garnished every plate.

What more can i say? I loved it. So again I'm inspired to post a poem. Ometeotl...
______________________________________________________________________
Leonor
“Afraid of Husbands, and the Law; Deportation Risk Grows for Abused Illegal Residents”
-New York Times Headline, April 1999

On the street she hums a bolero, walking under a row of cypress trees with leaves that rattle the winds of April, a humid scent grows. A truck, dog barks, an ambulance far still. A song by Trio Los Dandy’s. Tall kids stop bouncing a ball against a building the color of old bananas. “Ella está loca... por eso la dejó el marido,” others whisper. Months now she hums to the wind, to herons and roses, even before he threaten to take the child, before he swung white knuckles, before she sought refuge, whispered help me... but nothing. Long sleeves and make-up covered the excess of nights before, and again, again, like before, until that afternoon when she returned home to empty dresser drawers pulled out, hangers bare by her heavy coat, valise without documents, El Santo Niño de Atocha faced down, her saving from tips that she hid between Psalms and Proverbs, the child’s knitted blanket: everything had disappeared. The siren of the ambulance louder now; she hides behind a cypress tree as it sings que sin embargo sigues, unida a mi existencia, y si vivo cien años,
                                                                cien años pienso en ti…



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