Hot Sauce

 

My mother kept it under the sink

for the times my mouth got heated

and needed to be cooled down

 

by setting it ablaze. For every “shit”

I swallowed a teaspoon, each “fuck”

meant chugging from a Dixie cup.

 

I did the offense and then stood

by the sink to suck a tabasco fiasco

and then beg for water or milk to sip,

 

eyes sweating like steam on marble.

It didn’t stop me from cursing,

the words sweet in my mouth,

 

a motherfucking morsel too tender

not to taste, but I learned then

the cost of words, their weight

 

in fire, the young poet speaking

knowing the punishment, the pain

that always follows the poem.