Saturday Poem

///
Little Cambray Tamales
Claribel Alegria

(makes 5,000,000 little tamales) - for Eduardo and Helena
who asked me for a Salvadoran recipe

Two pounds of mestizo cornmeal
half a pound of loin of gachupin
cooked and finely chopped
a box of pious raisins
two tablespoons of Malinche milk
one cup of enraged water
a fry of conquistador helmets
three Jesuit onions
a small bag of multinational gold
two dragon's teeth
one presidential carrot
two tablespoons of pimps
lard of Panchimalco Indians
two ministerial tomatoes
a half cup of television sugar
two drops of volcanic lava
seven leaves of pito
(don't be dirty-minded, it's a soporific)
put everything to boil
over a slow fire
for five hundred years
and you'll see how tasty it is.

Translated from the Spanish by D.J. Flakoll From
WOMAN OF THE RIVER (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989)

///