Poetry from NER 41.3 (2020)
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Rather than a Chinatown, it looks like a rundown street where a few Chinese have dropped anchor, orphans of imperial dragons, thousand-year-old recipes, and mysteries.
—Rafael Bernal, The Mongolian Conspiracy
Amid the aisles of fideo
de huevo, de arroz,
hongo negro, shitake,
crisanemos, pétalo de lili,
& clavo chino—
I remembered
how her apron pockets
kept a box-cutter,
how she bagged Mad Dog
& Wild Turkey,
or wrapped precisely—
like a gift—a pig’s foot
in wax paper.