by Paolo Tiausas

A scattering of dumplings on a major road,
my mother says, what a waste, and I think what
a painful experience—the delivery boy in the story,
I do not know him, of course, I want to imagine
another scene. Meat in soy sauce and tomato paste
in plastic bags the size of a palm, neatly tied, neatly
fit in stomach, fit in a table of four this group of eight
with matching polo shirts, lively chatter before water
spills and, wait, I was going for something lighter
again. A scattering of dumplings on a major road,
this baby kitten the size of a hand with its fur soaked
in dirt, I tear my gaze away, what if it doesn’t last today?
I can only see too much, depending on the time of day,
but sometimes, the way lights bounce from car to cement
to building edge, it reminds me of a city built on soil,
except without it, except instead of the humming radio
I hear the urgent breathing, pacing of a sleeping dog,
and the hammocks are tied between adjacent trees but
there are only fruit and cigarette vendors under a bridge.
Again. I want to describe the afternoon. I love the city
sometimes I keep forgiving the animal turn and snide
I keep running into, in line for a tricycle going home and
this shadow of a citizen can’t help but say, when I say
go you should just go, stop holding up the line, and I
bite my tongue too hard I taste iron and a tinge of smoke,
and for a second, the dumpling is in the air, the dumpling
hangs in a cloud of exhaust, and I am back with mother,
telling her, what a waste, but I wasn’t that hungry anyway.