SERAPHIM

Ode to Tortillas José Olivarez

there’s two ways to be a Mexican writer that we’ve discovered so far.

you can be the Mexican writer who writes about tortillas or you can be the Mexican writer who writes about croissants instead of the tortillas on their plate.

(can you be a Mexican writer if you’re allergic to corn?)

there’s two ways to be a Mexican writer that are true & tested. you can write about migration or you can write about migration. (can you be a Mexican writer if you never migrated? if your family never migrated?)

there’s two ways to be a Mexican writer. you can translate from Spanish. or you can translate to Spanish. or you can refuse to translate altogether.

there’s only one wound in the Mexican writer’s imagination & it’s the wound of the chancla. it’s the wound of birria being sold out at the taco truck. it’s the wound of too many dolores and not enough dollars. it can be argued that these are all chanclazos. even death is a chanclazo.

there’s only one miracle gifted to Mexicans & it is the miracle of never running out of cheap beer. it’s the miracle of never running out of bad jokes.

there’s infinite ways to eat a tortilla: made in the ancient ways by hand & warmed on a comal. made with corn or with Taco Bell plastic. (what about flour tortillas?) flour tortillas count if you ask San Antonio. my people i am poly with the tortillas. you can eat tortillas with your hands or roll them up & dip them in caldo like my mom does. you can eat them with a fork and knife like my bougie cousins do. (what bougie cousins?) (i made them up for the purpose of this poem.) you can eat tortillas in tacos or warmed up by microwave and drizzled with butter. tortillas con arroz. tortillas con frijoles. tortillas flipped by hand or tortillas flipped with a spatula. tortillas with eggs for breakfast. tortillas fried and sprinkled with sugar for dessert. hard-shell tortillas. gluten-free tortillas for our mixed family. we are still discovering new ways to fold a tortilla. to cut a tortilla up. to transform a tortilla into new worlds. to feed each other with tortillas. my people: if i have children, i will teach them about tortillas, but i’m sure they’ll want McDonald’s.

–

Today in: 

“The god thou serv’st is thine own appetite…”

Artist’s Notes: Joshua’s hand casts an “anatomically accurate” heart-shaped hole in Caesar’s chest, and the end of the cigarette is also in the shape of a heart. I gave Joshua a tear mole at the corner of his eye, as they commonly foreshadow a life of pain and broken relationships. The ivy growing around the damaged statue of Christ symbolize both a form of redemption or transformation in the wasteland, but also simultaneously the act of clinging to the dead- which I feel fits both Joshua and Caesar’s characters in different ways.

The second illustration is a little rougher than the first one, mainly because I was writing an essay on Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus while drawing on the side. This was also where I got the quote above.

january 2024

april 2023