“Peyote Dream” Painting by Jesus Lopez Vega

Preposterous Vision

My friend Chuy says
it is peyote leached into the soil
the corn grows from
that gives Mexicans
such a remarkable sense of color.
The bright pigments of imagination
flood his canvasses.
His peyote dreams leak out into the real world
and wed it to create one world.
“Peyote dream” becomes its opposite—
a freight train taking us into the universal truth.
A larger reality.
This stalk of corn, this deer,
this head of amaranth,
all beckon, “Climb aboard.”

So when you bite into a taco
or tamale, when the round taste of corn
meets your tongue, and pleasure flows
in a lumpy river down your throat,
look up at what is standing in the shadows
and see that it is light that creates shadow.
See the many colors that create the black.
Follow where the corn beckons you to go—
into the other world of poetry and paint
and dance and music. Hot jazz with a mariachi beat.

Chew that train that takes you deeper. Hop aboard
the tamale express and you will ride into your
new life. It will be like your old life magnified
and lit by multicolored lights and the songs of merry-go-rounds
and when you bite into your taco, it will taste
like cotton candy and a snow cone
and your whole life afterwards will be a train that takes you nowhere
except back into yourself—a Ferris wheel
spinning you up to your heights and down again, with every turn,
the gears creaking “Que le vaya bien.”
I hope it goes well with you
and that you see the light
within the shadow
and the colors
in the corn.

For Fandango’s prompt: preposterous