I want to go back where I was always evenly drunk
in the ether of the womb, corded
like a cosmonaut to the ship of a body,
never growing hungry, or cold.
Instead, tonight I’m at Chen’s Good Taste
Restaurant ordering wontons over noodles
for one.
That is all? asks the tall server,
bending over me like a dove tree transplanted.
Yes, that is all, I answer. Because shouldn’t that be
plenty for one whose belly is empty and always
will be. And shouldn’t I be sitting alone,
who’s grown tired of reaching, of the effort
to ask and always be asking, would you care
to share a table with me?
Now to drink my watery
tea as I stare out the window at the sky over
Fourth Street, beneath which the owner chops chicken
to pieces, backlit. His head is as heavy
as mine.
And now I want chili, and Sriracha,
and a family, and the boy
who answers in English when his father
speaks in Chinese and I want
to eat the men seated next to me, and the table
and red chairs, too.
And where is my tether,
and where is my mother.
Maybe I should have ordered
the Beef Chow Fun. Or maybe
it’s that after birth
we can never really be full again.
