Chipotle

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Chipotle

Sometimes it pauses and the light
translates what we’ve lost,

momentarily framing the taste
entering our bodies through

mouth and nose and eye,
the knowledge of dissolution

enhanced. One bite
and it all returns: fire, peat,

water, the retracted
flesh become another’s

endeavor, as if giving form
to the world of air.

Without remorse,
we steal its most intimate self.

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78 thoughts on “Chipotle”

  8. I wish I had a pun to throw in with the rest of those peppered throughout the conversation, but I can’t take the heat…afraid that I don’t have as much fire as the rest of you. Love the photo!

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  15. Having lived in Puebla for three years, I, too am partial to poblanos–but you have captured the magnificent moment of tasting chipotle. I wonder, though: do we steal its intimate self, or–sometimes at least–enter a moment of shared intimate vulnerability?

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  25. Just as we gain our motivations in expense of devouring others’ passionate ways. The more we absorb their energies, the more we must start thinking of ways to give back… (And without this the ones giving away passion for other’s amusement loses its original form of passion.) I love the depth of this poem. Thank you for sharing.

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  27. Chipotle is rare for us in Oz — though I’ve got a deep love of chili born of raiding the plants as a 4YO,… apparently, they’re hot!? ” Delicious, not hot.” I reply…and I shouldn’t pick and eat them all, blah-dy blah. OMG, your poetry! Thank you.

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  29. Clearly, I was destined to read this today, having just put a hunk of chuck into the refrigerator in preparation for the next batch of chili. We just tested a pressure-cooker recipe for chili that we really like, and it uses both straight chipotles en adobo and a batch of salsa, which in our house is store-bought stuff that I enhance with—you guessed it—more of the same. Finished off the last meal of the chili two days ago and went right back to buy more beef for another batch. Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em!

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    • I recently made one with braised beef and pork. No chipotles in adobo, but still quite tasty! On occasion I make my own chipotle powder, and invariably inhale a bit of it when I open the spice grinder. The price of impatience, I suppose. Yes! Smoke ’em if you got ’em!

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  31. Excellent poem, but I almost wonder if it’s about something other than Chipotle. Is it an anagram? But it’s not about Politech. Probably not about “chile pot”. And it’s certainly not a traditional acrostic. There are three W’s in the first lines, but there is no acrostic there. It just fizzles out after http://www.teastem…can‘t do anything with the leftovers (memfte). So it just must be another Okaji original, and the mystery is in the effect of the words upon the reader.

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