by Sarah Torribio

Created on: May 08, 2009   Last Updated: May 09, 2009

I'm making papel picado banners from

the soggy labels of cut-rate cerveza.

Just for now.

Later, I'll go to the botanica and drop

my last million pesos on a love potion.

I'm wondering if you smell like wood

smoke, hair pomade or the long lost

floating gardens of Aztlan,

Just for now.

Later, I will brush the hair from

the back of your neck and inhale

deeply, then apologize: "Perdneme.

I thought you were someone else."

I'm feigning interest in a straw

wrapper, salt and pepper shakers

and the contents of my purse.

Just for now.

Later, I will send you an

aphrodesiacal drink - brandy

enflamed by pomegranate and

enfolding an egg-yolk heart.

"To love," I will say with a Castilian

cadence, "is to throw oneself into

a volcano, like an Aztec virgin."

That I am neither of these things

seems inconsequential.

I'm chipping at my nailpolish.

Just for now.

Later, I will engage in a violent

tango with the man who is busing tables.

When he dips me backwards until my hair

pools in your chip bowl, I will hiss

unthinkable obscenities in Spanish.

I am cultivating the overboiled confidence

of those who drink alone.

Just for now.

Later, I will ask you to settle a bet between

me and my imagination: "Do mermaids

count as mariscos?" It's the kind of

question that prompts suicide or a

marriage proposal. I will settle for

nothing less.

I am counting the calories on the dessert tray.

Just for now.

Later I will tickle the ivories on a pawn shop

accordian and trill my r's in a raucus ranchero.

During the guitar solo I will make my intentions

as clear as a sweating margarita glass:

"You are the kind of man who turns a woman

into a mariachi."

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