Finding a Baked Bao in his Suit Pocket, Victor Wong’s Barkeep
shrugs with curiosity, chuckles at the surprise
before taking a bite of his forgotten dim sum—
its butter-glazed roundness like a wet cheek.
Years ago, at Best Hong Kong in Mesa, Arizona
my father’s cheeks moved like water boiling
as he worked the meat from his chicken foot.
The hibiscus out my window now blooms
the bright tongue & lips of the Rolling Stones
car-freshener hanging from the rearview mirror
of my tío’s Chevy. If you start me up, the tireless
hummingbirds seem to say hovering & darting
—like flying jewels the Spanish observed,
enamored with the birds just before setting fire
to Mexica aviaries. Before his acting career,
Victor Wong studied painting with Mark Rothko.
I can’t help imagining a pork bun’s cameo,
its buttered surface in the burnt oranges
of the abstract expressionist’s colored fields.
Before Easter, Nana teases her morning eggs
from pinholes she’s carefully poked to keep
the eggshell whole for cascarones. A latchkey kid
with my key on its kite string, when I hung
upside down it fell to my lips—the way in church
I saw devout kissing saints on coins chained
about their necks. Superstitions to Estrellas,
the mountains were a potter’s coil. See us standing
in the deeper well of their olla? With his jalapeño
& carrot, Tata took bites with his lips pulled
back from the sting. With Ai Gu in the restaurant
where they serve the fish whole & wide-eyed,
as if still swimming the river reeds of cut scallion,
we used an app to draw the name for the pinyin,
then typed on my laptop to find the character
in the dropdown, before cutting & pasting
the generations. Later with kowtows at the grave,
I asked the sojourner to accept my sponge cake.
I can hear Ng Ng’s shop broom whispering
the store aisles if this, then that, but see her still
picking her teeth behind her cupped hand,
as if sharing a secret. Those eggshells, both casket
& castanet, break with old ellipses. At a banquet
now in heaven, my father pulls from his lips a wet bone
like a finger he’s sucked on to slip off a ring.
Haibun
***
Author photograph courtesy of Brandon Som
