Gathered in grief
Kneading teardrops into tortillas
Voices rise and fall
Coming in waves
Washing away pain
Like footprints in sand
Only to reappear again
faithfully

Together
We hold one another up
One with the blender
One with the broiler 
One flipping tortillas over the comal

Listening without speaking
Hearing the lost heartbeats 
of familiar faces frozen in time 
watching from the walls

Legacy
Isn’t clothes, jewelry, knick nacks, brick-a-brack, not land, cars, money, 
Legacy
Is memory, precious moments pressed into palms like fragile flower petals

Gathered in grief
Kneading teardrops into tortillas
We eat, we laugh, we weep, we remember
Love lingers in the air, immersed in every flavor

Together 
Holding each other up
One with a joke
One with a story
One with a song
One with a recipe
The waves of pain crash upon us
And we brace them with love, endlessly

© Milan Lopes