and in part by YWP

I have spread all your favorites
from the Pearl Street Wok
out on the coffee table.

Carefully, I pick small servings from each,
place them on my tongue, and remember.

Low mein drips its shrimp and veggie juices
onto the table. I pick the baby corn, teeth
all lined up and deciduous likes a child's, and make
a pile on my plate. I eat each with my fingers
and then suck them clean.

I am noisy.
I let the hot tins grow fond of the
delicate balsa table top.
I eat my pork-fried rice with a
fork because it is easier that way.

Words like love, when applied to the self,
so often get lost in translation. It seems like every
language but ours has a word for the day before yesterday.
This fortune tells me how to say "dry cleaning"
in Chinese. I am too busy laughing
to myself to read the other side.