America the Delicious
At a Thai restaurant in Kowloon,
I’m waiting for my green curry and duck
when my aunt asks me about American food,
and I’m looking down on this view—
the Times Square of Asia, wondering why, oh dear,
Auntie, why do you want to know
about American food when you live in Asia,
the food continent of the world,
and I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again, goddamn
Marco Polo stole our noodles,
passing them off as spaghetti, and I know it’s all
a myth, but don’t steal my food,
don’t steal my dumplings, don’t steal my spring rolls
rolled by my father, who used to
make miniature ones for our beloved Buzzie,
and in Kowloon, my green curry and duck
comes, and I’m already ready for dessert,
because there’s nothing better in life than eating,
other than kissing all night long and coconut
coconut coconut, the mango sticky rice comes
in purple and the Woon Bai Toey, and I wonder:
Just what is so sweet about America: America
the Delicious, America of the hot dogs drizzled
in ketchup and mustard, not fancy Dijon,
only classic and yellow, classic and yellow, throw in
grilled onions and a pickle, and some
days I’m really craving a large pickle in my mouth,
sour and suck, sour and suck, followed by a large
bowl of rice, but who am I kidding, as a grown ass
woman, my father still scolds me for not finishing
the whole bowl, because I’m not a good little
Chinese girl, and I know that combination’s odd,
but you’ve got to admit that deep frying everything
at the fair is on a whole other level of aliens
landing, getting confused level of weird, and I try
explaining deep-fried butter to my aunt,
or what deep-fried Oreos or deep-fried cookie dough
or deep-fried bubblegum or deep-fried
Twinkies, aren’t you ever the most adorable thing,
and my aunt wants to know more, she wants
to taste the craze: the cereal on donuts,
the cheesecakes dipped in blue raspberry
chocolate, the chicken and waffles, chicken
and waffles and edible flowers and ketchup
chips and cupcakes and don’t you ever stop
by the cake section of your grocery store and just
want to lick an entire bowl of blue icing,
because life is too short, and I really could use another
Thai iced tea as Kowloon kids are lining
up for gai daan jai, the Chinese egg waffles,
the Queen of Hong Kong street food, and an ocean
away, New Yorkers are lining up for the same
waffles but with sprinkles and Fruity Pebbles
and Pocky and marshmallows, and that’s a little
too much, and America, you’re delicious,
but stop tainting my Hong Kong street food—
stop tainting that legendary mile-long line waiting
for their gai daan jai and fish balls and my cousin
goes crazy over that curry and curry
squid and octopus tentacles and fried pig intestines
and egg tarts and siu mai, and oh,
Hong Kong, you cutie, you’re delicious—
don’t you ever change, and yes, I’ll take
a couple fish balls on a skewer to go.
—
This selection comes from Dorothy Chan’s full-length book, Revenge of the Asian Woman, available from Diode Editions. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Danielle Hanson.
Dorothy Chan is the author of Attack of the Fiy-Foot Centerfold (Spork Press, 2018) and the chapbook Chinatown Sonnets (New Delta Review, 2017). She was a 2014 finalist for the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Academy of American Poets, e Cincinnati Review, e Common, Diode Poetry Journal, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. Chan is the Editor of e Southeast Review and Poetry Editor of Hobart.
