Your friends call you up
and tell you they have menudo
on the stove. They remind you
that the laundry will
not do itself but it can wait.
The dirty dishes will not
jump out of the sink and
start a revolt against los gatos.
Come over. Bring some good
metaphors full of color tambien.
Your madre said that your real friends
will always share their comida
and then their loneliness
which might be dished
out a tired table with four different
colored chairs that wobble.
You always just let yourself in, and they
are sitting, talking about how
Janette Goldstein was Vasquez (that tough ass
soldier packing major heat)
in the horror movie Aliens.
Why did it take so long
for all of them to realize that?
One will point to the big pot
of menudo. Maybe it is red and,
maybe it is white. It is steaming
like something magical. On the table,
are red, yellow and blue bowls
of chopped onion, cilantro, salsa,
and a plate of fresh corn tortillas.
They started before you arrived.
You toss the metaphor
from your pocket onto the table
it lands near the empty
bottles of cerveza and crushed limes.
Christopher Rubio-Goldsmith grew up in Tucson, Arizona and taught English at Tucson High School for 28 years. Much of his work explores growing up near the border, being raised in biracial/bilingual familia and teaching in a large urban school. A two-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. He was also an Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest (Paterson Review) honorable mention, and the summer 2025 Eleventh Hour Literary Journal poetry contest winner. His work will appear in the upcoming Hamilton Stone Review. The two cats sleep too much and Kelly, his wife, asks him to drink less coffee.