Bell Peppers and Beef Blues by Ariel Francisco

Associate poetry editor Randi Clemens on today's bonus poem: "Bell Peppers and Beef Blues" is not just a Cowboy Bebop poem. It is a contemplation on hardship, struggle, and things we lack. Ariel Francisco’s simplicity speaks volumes. 
 

Bell Peppers and Beef Blues

Grown thin as the
cash you don’t have,

your only green’s
in those peppers

steaming lonely
on that plate

but you call it
bell peppers and beef

anyway, same way
you say an ex’s

name aloud when
no one’s near,

hoping to taste
just the sound.

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Ariel Francisco is the author of All My Heroes Are Broke (C&R Press 2017) and Before Snowfall, After Rain (Glass Poetry Press 2016). Born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents, he completed his MFA at Florida International University in Miami. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets, The American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2016, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere.