Highways and Byways: Salsa Dancer

By Maik Strosahl

In younger days
he poured in a shot of Cuervo,
stirred it into the
peppers, onion and tomato—
booze and a salad he joked
as he chugged from a jar
chewing chunks,
enjoying the burn
as he jumped
on out to the dance floor,
sharing his heat with the ladies.

He said it was his cure
for the queso in the veins
that took his father at fifty,
the granddad he never knew
just shy of forty-three.

Momma’s gone now too
and those amazing enchiladas
he does his best to replicate,
to eat all alone these days.

He’s outlived them all.

He gave up tequila
about the same time
they took his license,
a year after retiring,
when he decided
he didn’t need to go
anywhere he couldn’t walk:

downtown for the mail,
the bank, a haircut,
the Dollar General for food.

He opens another salsa
for a swig without the sauce
as he shuffles his
lonely dance down the alley
and back home
to reheat leftovers
in the microwave—

warmed tortillas,
meat and cheese
cooled with sour cream,
a scoop of avocado
to refill the day,
to clog the flow
just washed out
by the morning’s bottle.

Copyright © 2023 by Michael E. (Maik) Strosahl Maik was born and raised in Moline, Illinois, and has written poetry since youth. After moving to Indiana and daring to participate in a poetry reading, he joined its poetry society and began his search for the state’s local groups, occasionally starting groups in communities where he found none. In 2018, he relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, and in July 2023 returned to his roots in the Quad Cities, where he continues to search for kindred spirits to inspire and draw energy from.