food

food

food is a legacy

the women in my family have

long carried on.

sitting on my

tiled kitchen floor

watching Nani knead

dough after dough,

scented marzipan vanilla

of the Portuguese history

her ancestors left.

my orange headband is

too big for my head;

my hands too small

to help.

the kitchen is

my mother's

sacred space. she

doesn't make kaju scented

marzipan but

she pours vinegar

in sorpotel like

she was born for the moment.

she watches fat drip down

succulent bacon as she

adds thicker slices

of pumpkin to

the sambhar she's

making my father

to show how much she loves him.

but growing up

my hands burn everything

they touch and so

when we road trip around

a white man's country

I am kicked out the trailer