Food and Beverage: “Aubade with Secret Herbs and Spices” by Steven Espada Dawson

Aubade with Secret Herbs and Spices

In the parking lot of a KFC, a line cook tells me comedy 
is tragedy plus thyme. A pause, then Get it? He swivels 

a roach between his fingertips. The cherry of it spit roasts
his cuticles. I want to kiss them healthy again. 

He writes the joke on a napkin. I laugh like I understand. 
I want to. My back flat against the asphalt black, peppered 

with cigarette butts, receipts made translucent 
with fryer grease. Each exhale, a whimper of garlic

chasing wild basil up my nose. At culinary school,
his teacher says crisp is for the front teeth, crunch 

is for the molars. He recites the lessons back to me
like poems, tells me every word that scratches his throat. 

Morning sun scorches the grass, catches me bent over 
his dresser, pulling borrowed socks up my ankles. 

The rain has dried. Mustard colored double-yellows 
cut the drive home in half. I take a shower, cold

as a baptism. Standing over a saucepan, I roll 
Mexican oregano between my palms, aromatic 

prayer. Like my mother taught me. After a night
of rituals she didn’t teach me. On the chopping block—

onion, carrot, celery. Outside my window, paprika
-red chrysanthemums. Their egg yolk centers, 

roots fingering the ground. Ginger skins
disrobe on the counter. The soil 

all around me, sweating its salt.

About Steven Espada Dawson

Steven Espada Dawson is from East Los Angeles. The son of a Mexican immigrant, he is the Halls Fellow in Poetry at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. Recipient of a Pushcart Prize and a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, his work appears in Agni, Guernica, Kenyon Review, Ninth Letter, and Poetry.