broth the color of thin blood the red-brown
of a shot eye its insomniac boil fat with bone
yuca & tripa

bone the cow’s foot a fleshless knuckle tender ache
   in your jaw grisly glacier to suckle dirty as a moon
   floating dark in your bowl

yuca ruthless root skin scarred cracked as Gordon’s
   immortal back root so rugged you gotta hack it apart
   with a butcher’s knife flesh made soft & starchy
   only in the cauldron’s tempest-temperature landing
   in your belly heavy as a lie the most filling part
   of the meal only a few bites will kill any hunger

tripa the gut where every troubled truth is felt ripe
     with shit scoured scrubbed & thrice boiled soft
     three pots of water abandoned to clean the belly sponge
     stringy meat worm-pale small as cut tongues

all cooked with platanos zanahoria y ayote
served at noon on summer days where the flies drowned
landing on our foreheads the meal we would grimace
at as children ungrateful for the sacrifices of our parents

sopa de pata

you raw ritual you taught me
   how to lick clean every bowl & bowel
   how to swallow even the sour
   the bitter aftertaste of every lover

sopa de pata

   you choked me once
   as a child a soft rope
   of tripe trapped in my throat
   i gagged & soundlessly called
   out for Mama but she couldn’t hear me
   until i clapped my hands
   on the table at once she lifted me
   from the chair & pounded
   my back with her palm
   until i coughed out a mouthful
   of your white gut onto the kitchen floor
   wet & grim as a slug

i gasped for breath wiping tears from my eyes
   & asked Mama if i could be excused
she looked me straight in the eye & said no
   we don’t waste food

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Contributor Notes

Willy Palomo is the son of two undocumented immigrants from El Salvador. His poems and book reviews can be found in the pages of Vinyl, Waxwing, Muzzle, The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, or www.palomopoemas.com.