…for no apparent reason

I’m going to be in Beijing

in an alley crammed with

tiny restaurants

and moms and pops food shops

with the bulging eyes

of once recently fresh fish

staring at me from dirty windows.

Since I don’t know the lingo,

I’ll use the take-out vocabulary

I’ve learned from the

“WOK and Roll -Take-Out Menu”

at the Lowes Mall back home.

I’ll proudly order “moo-goo-guy-pan”!

But the waiter will stare at me

as though I am some typical

American Moron making an attempt

at a jingo-istic-joke

and in the cultured voice

of an Oxford University Don,

he’ll pout, “I am sooo sorry, sir.

But that …ah… dish…

is not Chinese,

but rather a uniquely hybrid….substance…

from America

which our 3 Star Michelin chef would

never dare to dane to prepare on this premises

as per the order of our esteemed proprietor.

Is there, perhaps,

a more appropriate repast

you might prefer to order?

Louisiana Bayou Jambalaya, for instance?”

And I, mortified, under his penetrating sneer,

will blindly stumble out the door

and back down the alley

to the Golden Arches on the corner

where I’ll order a Big Mac and fries.

At least, then,

I will remember

what I am.