It’s Let’s Get Food
Not I love you, that are the three best words
in the English language, because I believe
in the practicality of love. Romance is when
I order two Palomas and a steak for lunch
in LA—that windswept feeling of victory
is what the movies are about. Do you want to
rent a convertible, drive off into the sunset,
finger bang tongue me down when the light
turns red I’ll blush all over. Are you love or
a beautiful memory is the 50/50-coin toss.
At a beer garden, X licks salt off his Paloma
with that tongue I’m about to tongue—his
seduction of eating me, then soft kisses. How
much longer can I accept beautiful memories—
Triple Sonnet for A Lover’s Secret I’ll Share Now
“I get my hair cut like Harrison Ford
in Blade Runner,” he says on our first
date, creating a new lover’s secret
that’s not okay to share but fine to put
in a poem. We order a Caesar Salad
& olives, & I don’t understand the rules
of heterosexuality, while the snow falls
in this backup town of the TV movie
of the week. In a week, he will tell me,
“Baby, no fast food,” & I will be reminded
of how in the ’80s, my dad dropped off
McDonald’s at my mother’s dorm when
she was the hottest co-ed, ultra femme
begins to explain both my problems with
love and my love of fast food. In a week,
we will eat at another restaurant. I will order
a fajita bowl with shrimp and no cocktail.
He will say, “That looks healthy, baby,”
while craving a baby in me. Do you ever
wonder about attraction—one Christmas,
my mother switches subjects when I ask
about how she met my father —“After
college.” Another holiday, my father brags
that my mother, at eighteen, was ready
to care for him & his two sons. Femmes
born in the Year of the Snake are said to
frustrate the most when it comes to romance.
Do you ever wonder about attraction—
When I was six, I asked my mother about
two-headed snakes, how most don’t survive
into adulthood, sometimes one half will
eat the other head. What if pop divas danced
on stage holding two-headed serpents, though
I loved Britney & Banana at the 2001 VMAs.
When I was six, I found a red lipstick in my
mother’s bathroom drawer, a relic from her
20s, a color my father forbade her from
wearing, from attracting other men. I use
older men. For dick. For presents, because
men my age give me nothing but honesty.
Triple Sonnet Because Food is My Love Language
You can’t holler at a queer poly Asian
without knowing the ropes, Rita says,
because every time a love interest makes
me cry—yes, I sound like a casting
director, Rita and I are gazing out into
bodies of water, and I’m so sick of this
story arc. I remember Lake Michigan
on Easter weekend: furs wrapped around
our bodies, after brunch facing the Chicago
Skyline: Corned Beef Hash with Potatoes,
hot sauce, ketchup: a Bloody Mary with
bacon, three olives, pearl onion, rest of
garnish, etc., which is my favorite word
in the English language, because it’s sexiness
embodied. The lake looks the bluest when
your best friend is your life partner and soul
mate, which is never talked about enough
in this world of breakup poems and nuclear
families, and how on my birthday, I hang
up on my brother after he laughs when I teach
him the million-dollar lesson that the child
chooses their gender, so can you please fuck
off with those parties where pop the balloon
and out comes blue or pink? Did you ever notice
how aunt rhymes with cunt? It’s that special
slant of sound, but I can’t be an auntie because
I’m not a lady. I’m the highest of femmes
eating their way through life. Rita and I dream
after a lunch of cod and chips and mojitos
when we decide to sail away on a yacht,
because escapism is everything, only we
both get seasick, like when the actress on
the hottest show of the season admits that,
only she’s been filming on a boat this whole
time, and I just wish we could enjoy things.
I’m on a boat, well, “I’m on a float,” is that
remix from college, and I remember A feeling
heartbroken at that concert, but really, enough.
Rita tells me there’s more to life than monogamy,
and I take a plunge into the Love Potion No. What-
Ever Cocktail for $15: Yeoman Wheat Vodka,
Spiced Pear Liquor, Lemon Juice, Brown Sugar
Syrup, Cranberry, Rosemary—a little courage.
My Lover’s Wife Says
She hated her maiden name, which is why
she took his. I look at her straight black hair
and sensible heels that say I won’t take up
too much space. Chanting her family name,
in a dream, I notice the slant rhymes with
Chan, how she gave that up for [this generic]
white man, who’s sleeping with other women—
other Asian women—me. He buys me
Japanese whiskey in Chicago, then complains
about the bill. I sit on his lap. He unhooks
my bra. I could write Think Pieces about
what leads men to Orientalize their partners—
Let me drink you under the table. Fuck.
Then throw you out once I’m done, I tell him.
