Scoot into the red booth at the busy taqueria. 
Roberto remembers my Chori Pollo
& coaxes me into fried ice cream
while I crack my new journal & scratch poems.
Mariachi polkas & corridos
syncopate like coordinated lovers.
Five thumping strings of the little vihuela
& the trumpet–-glaring gleamer! 
It’s not just the dangling chili peppers
& tissue paper roses. Not rainbow serapes,
or pinatas of donkeys & bulls.
It’s that my husband’s grandfather
was born in Aguascalientes 
with its red tile roofs, pink quarry stone
& twisted wrought iron. In a dream
he once whispered,
      Spanish is spoken here.