if they ask you about the comida


    tell them about the empanadas,


    filled with crisp beef, jamon y queso,


    popular chicken slices or infamous melting raisins.


    The outer shell is baked or bathed in snapping oil,


    its round ripe body crowned with finger-formed braids.


    ?Comen hermanitas!


    Tell them about the twine noodles.


    Shoe string spaghetti, caterpillar rotini,


    sombrero ravioli and fish-fin campanelle.


    Cascades of meat sauce, milky-white sauce,


    just-oil-and-not-really sauce at all.


    Mothers of Argentina, let them eat pasta.


    Tell them about the asado,


    steaming and whispering on the backyard fire,


    brought in on cookie sheets, slabs of famous


    Argentine cow and full-moon slices of squash.


    La mesa crowded with small herds of bread,


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    baby baguettes scattered with no shepherd


    as small dogs bite knees under the table.


    Or tell them about the impromptu ice cream tuppers,


    topped off with rice, Neapolitan vegetables


    (orange, green, yellow), overflowing with edge-of-the-city,


    living-in-a-train-car asado. Argentine BBQ,


    cooked by Peruvians


    living on the edge of the city’s mind.


    Don’t tell them about the fish heads,


    googly-eyed, rebel sardines in plastic containers.


    They make a quick trip into the apartment


    trashcan, rubber mouths still gaping.


    How could you do this to me?


    You might mention the mangoes,


    cut into grid squares, gift from a vegan elder.


    Juice running like the Euphrates and Pison


    out of the Garden of Eden, down arms and chins.


    Suitcase-leather mango skin, bruised green with yellow and purple.


    Fleshy orange fruit eaten in the capilla Belgrano.


    It is essential you discuss the green rice,


    dressed in drizzled Peruvian sauce.


    A shapely chicken leg perches on the edge


    of the plate, infused with vegetables or envy


    or latino love.


    You won’t need to tell them about the alfajores:


    all kinds. Three-for-ten pesos.


    Evening-dress Havanna, black-soul chocolate showing.


    Sweet-fanged Milka, queen of indulgence and sugary smiles.


    Jorgelin, the Micky D’s of alfajores, omnipresent.


    Big-city-gangster Cachafaz,


    representative-for-the-common-folk Guaymallen,


    architectural-wonder-three-layers-thick Terrabusi


    and the soaring eagle Aguila.


    Fancy ways of saying Argentine love in slick packages,


    empty shells coating the streets,


    whispering Te amo.