The Tao of Taco Salad

The Tao of Taco Salad


Greasy, browned, and chili’d beef,
Seasoned and dripping, auburn
With cayenne, and tomato, and onion, and mostly salt:
Saturating the crispy shell bottom.

Shredded, yellowed iceberg leaf,
Drenched, ribboned filler of space.
Providing the gruesome illusion of healthiness:
Oleaginous vegetal distraction.

Sharp cheddar jack and sour cream,
Dolloped, cast, and clumping mass:
Creamy , soothing salves, tongue-tickling cool diversions
From the warm and spicy protean guts.

Salsa fresca, rough-chopped japs,
Minced or sauced, mildly-kicking,
A palate-consternating flaming glue and tinting force:
Power in each otherwise feckless bite.

Alas, the edible bowl:
Golden-crisped, corned and flaky,
Fleetingly contains, embraces then disintegrates
Into bygone crumby reminiscence.