Tacos, by Jason Myers

i.m. Anthony Bourdain

The red sauce is hot af the guy at the table
            next to mine declares to no one
in particular though he’s there with a woman
            more interested in her feed than him.
It’s ten in the morning on a Saturday,
            everyone else still in bed
or not getting paid enough for the work
            they’re doing. I pour red &
green over my migas until the eggs
            vanish. I want my mouth a fire,
a ruined village, a place tourists will
walk through later shaking
their heads asking themselves & the guide
            what happened? Which is what
I keep asking as I look at the man with
            an accordion strapped to his chest,
his hair black as loss & mirroring wholly
            the sun. He’s waiting for the bus
on Pleasant Valley to take him home or
            some sad midmorning gig. I can’t
see his face but I know what it looks like.
            It’s beautiful & heavy with capitalism
& astonishment. A face not strange to
            sorrow, to standing over caskets.
The keys on his instrument gleam like
            flowers waiting to be cut. As
I devour my tacos I recognize the truth
            in my teeth, taproot of this
mortal coil: some tastes will never
            go away, some words will
never be enough. The musician’s leather
            jacket bears an angel on its
back, her slender, Marian figure folded
            in wings or flames I don’t know.
I don’t know. Whatever song she sings
            she sings for you.

Jason Myers is the poetry editor of The EcoTheo Review. A National Poetry Series finalist, his work has appeared in American Poet (introduced by Campbell McGrath), The Paris Review, West Branch, and numerous other journals. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he works in hospice.