By Jordan Alejandro Rivera
Tier I: Inframundo
Poppy and cempasúchil petals
Intermingled as our destinies
Blood, bones, and stems
Obsidian spearheads
And shattered sugar skulls
Tier II: Tierra
Tomatoes, white sapotes, and olives
Laid out on a lattice-patterned scarf
Ten thousand and forty-three
Candles flicker in harmony
Guiding us here together
Wax binds our food
Tier III: Cielo
A black-and-white photo of us
Before our disappearances
And now, finally,
We found our way back home.
Jordan Alejandro Rivera is a 23-year-old queer Chicano writer living in Boston. Jordan is passionate about mutual aid and is involved with the Prison Book Program. Having studied Biology at NYU, he now works as a medical researcher. He has poetry forthcoming in Metachrosis, partially shy, and Acedia Journal. Find him on X/Twitter @jordinowrites.
Photo credit: Miguel Angel Ruiz via a Creative Commons license.
A note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.
Share your thoughts about this.