an ode to chili peppers
How lucky are we to live in a time of sriracha,
to burn our tongues on chicken fried rice or
birria tacos, to suck our fingers and reclaim
the sour cream and cheese that has fallen
there. How special is it to sprinkle adobo on
a halved avocado and mush it all together, to
relish the pieces of cilantro stuck in our teeth,
the squeeze of a lime into a chilled glass and sip
bitter liquor tinged with salt. How amazing to
stand in the kitchen and sift through the
forgotten food in the fridge and find an
abandoned habanero wrinkling in the fresh
drawer, to make it a promise and flip through
hand-me-down recipes so long the orange
turns black. How spectacular to consume
calories and use them, to take the body’s
energy to inhale the essential and exhale the
unnecessary, to dream of sugar and spice
in the containers of the cupboard and
accidentally get paprika in our eyes,
crying red-streaked tears down our cheeks that
are wiped away by lovers. How lucky are
we to live in this time, me with you and
you with me.
Savannah S. Miller (she/her) is a queer and disabled writer of poems, plays, and the things in between. Her work has been featured by or is forthcoming with Modern Language Studies, Jelly Bucket, Flash Fiction Magazine, Watershed Review, the Sierra Club, and others. She is the author of the poetry collection Route 460 (Red Rook Press) and the chapbook Transit (Bottlecap Press). Read more at savannahsmiller.com.