Mondongo

Defeating Troy
might have been easier
than enjoying mondongo,

no wooden horse
ever fooled my mother
—paychecks still a week away—

not to serve boiled tripe
and a few small potatoes
simmering in her tomato sauce.

I doubt that Menelaus hated Paris 
as much as my brother and I 
despised mondongo,

but we swallowed 
the boiled tripe cubes,
with the determination

that a cheated king showed
for holding firm against the siege
of his legendary city.

My mother, unlike Helen,
was never whisked away,
she never travelled far,

she stayed to feed us,
remained a teacher,
the queen of her third grade,

determined to be faithful
to her own king
and mondongo’s majesty.

JUAN PABLO MOBILI

Juan Pablo Mobili was born in Argentina and adopted by New York. His poems have appeared in the American Journal of Poetry, Hanging Loose, the Paterson Literary Review, and other US publications, as well as many international journals. He has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize, and his chapbook Contraband was published in 2022. He has also been a guest editor for The Banyan Review.