LA SORTA
Taylor Graham
The whole thing began on a paper napkin
in a place called La Sorta where all the locals
were holding menudo in chipped white bowls,
or was it their fingernails around the bowls
were chipped? The floor strewn with sawdust
and peanut shells so anybody - adventure,
romance, mayhem - could slip right up
behind you.
You studied the menu, while he spilled
margarita on the napkin where you’d scribbled
something inconsequential or else immensely
important: doodles or the phone number
of the man sitting across from you, or
the combination to a lock with everything
you possess inside, or lyrics to some song,
and smudged it all. So when you reach again
for your drink, whatever you wrote
is all dissolved into napkin, a watercolor
pattern shimmering tequila-green
like fate.
