Blue Corn Special – by hakim bellamy

There is butter in the barrio
that will not let us slide

or slip
in la cocina

we will take a kitchen to our worries like sugarcane
weed people out of our lives
like … weeds

put butt
on back
meat on bone and
too skinny nephews

… like butter

put family in marrow
like oso buco
put family in morrow
like leftovers

there is butter in the barrio
that will not let us lose weight
that keeps us afflicted
with heavy heart disease
like we've got a crush on ourselves

because our capacity for love
is bigger than our waist lines

because we will fit a feast day
and a pheasant
in the center of a circle of friends
like an open mouth
waiting for rain

we wear our dinner
like blackberry rouge
a swollen jaw full of seconds
always coming back for more

homecooked and half baked
we eat hella good
even when hell is bad
we stand in the heat
we live in the kitchen

comfort food
til we're uncomfortable

we smile huge
with our hips
from cheek to cheek
stuffing "I don't care" in our right pocket
and stuffing "I don't cholesterol"
in our left

we are a buffalo buffet
no bull

there is butter in the barrio
that will not let us burn

just brown

fly like tortilla
never drown
not even at the cantina
as sure as fry bread floats

cheat charity with chicharones
cash poor
but abundant in familia
a surplus of sisters
and the myriad of dishes we can whip up
from corn, bean & squash

we put the carne in carnale
flesh of my flesh
blood of my ...

tofu?

we are as green as the farmer
and as red as his boots

we sound like my uncle
when I was young and chunky
and he said I was on a seafood diet
cause when you don't know when your next meal is coming
you eat all the food you see

we sound like my father
when his son left for college a carnivore
and came back eating only leaves
and he said, “Son
Tummy doesn't grow on trees”

we sound like a good conversation
the perfect side to every meal
like laughter
and it doesn't matter
white or red

put our values where our mouth is
like we're vegans

we are all eyes
bigger than stomaches that go down swinging

by mortar & pestle
we make masa of the mesa
as it rolls itself thin as the horizon is yellow
towards the blue corn sky

there is butter in the barrio
that should have killed us by now
but in the belly of the beast
you gottas try harder than that

we will feed a multitude with five bushels of red
and two fish
…as long as you don’t ask where the fish comes from

when life gave us limes
we made tequila
and a mean lime butter sauce
that really brings a dish together…

like people

We are like butter, baby

We are the butter in the barrio
that has fueled warriors
and fertilized wombs

slathered blankets of our hands
over beds of flour
and yielded a sea of sopapilla

we are whom we eat

as we snap
crackle
dance
and sing

in this comal of a desert
that gives us life
one meal at a time.

© Hakim Bellamy October 2nd, 2013 for Fuze Southwest 2013