“I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I write and I understand.”
—Chinese proverb
August 2008
9 posts
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion,”
—The Dalai Lama
“Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.”
—George Lois
Venom by Luisa Igloria
In every bottle of Caballeros
triple-distilled mezcal, a scorpion
swims in a silo of liquid the color
of caramel, of clarified dulce de leche,
the hot milk of it pressed from a mulch
of chopped blue agave hearts, maguey azul.
Darker than an olive dropped into a martini,
it’s there as a memento of what follows
after the flush of pleasure, after the heat
that turns the knees into a mash like pulque
because though she said she wouldn’t let it,
she’s let her heart float to her mouth—
it lies on its side like a fish in cold
stupor and her tongue has gone numb
like a stone. All because she’s fallen
for the one she can’t have, she tosses
her head back and drains the little cups
like they were poison, remembering
the sting of lime on his tongue, the bite of salt
in the crevice between his finger and thumb.
