At the Wonton Monkee
My husband, the ex-army mess cook
from Maine, doesn't fight
the neighborhood grub, doesn't expect much
in the way of good truck-stop coffee,
small talk, or accurate translations
from the blunt-faced waitresses who hurry
customers & order for them. As he cleans
his chopsticks with tea, the way
I showed him, Iron Goddess of Mercy
stripping their sticky shine, I muscle
him to try the blackboard special—
fish bladders bubbling
in a clay pot—to break out
of his sweet & sour rut. After all,
our children will be half Chinese.
He eyes scaly pike plucked
from the live tank, orders the #34,
Happy Chicken—Mild. At the far end,
the chow-splattered fat guy, whose face
decorates the greasy menu, chops slabs
of roasted suckling & cleaves open
the pearled flesh of an octopus, tossing it,
hot & bothered, to ooze its briny ink
onto a bed of rice. It's a sinus-clearing
classic only we Cantonese can stomach,
not honest like steak, served as bloody
as you like. The only things
the Chinese won't eat are rocks,
my husband comments, poking
at his chicken cubes, crimson red
& more sour than sweet.