We miss your limp, the product of polio. Your shallow breath, the effect of emphysema. We miss your frail and tattered frame, warped from years of labor, yet stronger than us all. We miss your brown paper bags, filled with burritos, dreams and candy. Your wrinkled and leathered skin, the roadmap of your life, is the same I follow now, and the same that wrinkles mine. Oh Felipito, how your toothless smile made even the toothed ones envious. When tequila flows freely, we spill some for you, knowing the desert is now your tongue and palate. "Que sabroso!" you say, spoken as the wind through the weeping willows. Oh Felipito, Felipito, the earth embraces you now, and all heaven is in envy.

© Esteban Soto

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