Shopping Cart
    items

      ←

      April 13, 2023Hay EloteMichael Jon Khandelwal

      Hay elote, he shouts
      outside my window; I have wondered for years
      what message he was bringing. Today,
      I learned: there is corn.
      I remember growing
      up, seeing rows of cornstalks,
      sampling the first of the harvest,
      smothered in butter and salt.
      Hay elote, the man sings out;
      corn, it seems, exists here, too. Perhaps
      I am not far from the eastern sunrise,
      not far from corn,
      feeding us all, in the communion
      of hunger for food. The sun is huge
      over a field; stalks bristle
      in the wind. This man knows,
      brings corn to my house, offers
      me my mother’s hands
      in a crowded street.

      from #29 - Summer 2008

      Michael Jon Khandelwal

      “When I lived in Los Angeles, every day, a man would walk by my house shouting—I investigated and found he was selling fresh corn. Something about that touched me, reminded me of my days living in Virginia, days when I would explore the cornfields. I was astonished by this man, and how his words—in a language I didn’t know—sparked my memory so vividly. Of course, I wrote a poem about this man and his corn, as poems, for me, come from the astonishing experience of living.”

      →