The waiter knows enough
to guess the order.
The words, like habit.
The dish, like love.
The recipe, like memory.

Marinate the steak.
Let it sit. Fry until crisp.
Chop up lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers.
Fry the egg sunny-side up.
Pile shredded pork upon it.
Add rice -
your food pornography awaits the
plastic-wrapped disposable chopsticks.

The fish rotting in the sun-baked barrel
thinks not of nuoc mam,
thinks not of his juice keeping rice comfortably moist,
thinks not of his insides inside of you,
thinks not.

Like last evening,
I came over and ate your mother's rice,
squirmed in your father's eyes,
ate everything on my plate
(with a fork, after your brothers laughed),
and said cám on, patting my belly.
She wants you to marry me,
thinking to make you whole again.
He sees that I am white -
that settles things.
I would object, but
whenever I look up
he is still Vietnamese.

Items fifty-nine through sixty-eight
all differ in one word -
rice with tomato, cucumber, lettuce, egg, shredded pork,
and something dead.
Who would I offend more, if I didn't eat her -
the dead cow, the dead fish?
I think they think not about difference.

I slowed as I drove by your temple
this morning, trying to ignore
incense burning around the mandarins.
No one eats mandarins in restaurants.
I wonder if your ancestors aren't starving
for rice with nuoc mam,
but you say they're making mandarin casserole
for a mandarin potluck with my ancestors.
You're right, of course,
I see them all, reclined against a table,
wondering why your mother never taught you
to prepare com thit nuong,
so I could get around to asking you sooner.