Flat Roof by Mike Baynes
Closed for the Season
Raul’s Taco Stand once served the best tacos in town.
The crispy shell made from masa harina, corn flour
the soft shell from special flour and oil, were his mother’s
recipes, grilled fresh, all the ingredients from local fields.
His wife, Marie, always smiled when she served
the tacos and said, “Buen Provecho.”
Sometimes his kids worked behind the counter
or in the kitchen but they were in school so worked
only on holidays.
He’s gone, now. His family’s gone, deported back to Guatemala.
They were undocumented; they had fled the drug cartels.
Who knows where they are, if they are; who knows when
there will ever be tacos as good as Raul’s?
The Discerning Woman's Gallery of Verse 