There’s nothing better than the best holiday dish,
and nothing worse than the best dish prepared badly.

Our matriarch was never much for traditions,
more one for meeting everybody’s shifting needs.

Wants in our world shifted slower than this earth’s crust
and more like tectonic plates.

I carry mine, if nobody else’s, into my new home.
I call it history. I chop the cilantro

and blend it into avocado.
I dip rolls in melted oil. I dice the onion small.

Everybody tweaks their recipes and reconstructs their stories,
picking and choosing, holding on and letting go,

perfecting according to wants, but more often needs-
catharsis and comfort, survival and memory-

crafting identity, finding joy in the best versions of themselves,
sharing them, with love, with the world.