Upon recognizing each other with a wave,
with wet grass between us, we met in a drizzle.
We decided on ice cream; you picked
raspberry. I went with my usual:
coffee with dark chocolate, for I liked how the bitter
befriended the sweet, the way some days tasted
.
only after they’d passed. The way ginger tasted
in the plate of Chinese broccoli back home: a wave,
so subtle, lapping against the tongue, veiling the bitter
rice wine with a humble spice. The way I added a drizzle
of syrup and acted like it was business as usual,
trying to stomach the sodium-stricken pancakes I picked
.
at a summer camp here. My tongue must’ve picked
up on the difference between how things tasted
before and after adjustments to the usual
all-American palate. Why else would a wave
of calm rinse over me, when I sipped on that drizzle
of evaporated milk in the tea back home—bitter
.
without crying out for sugar? Bitter
melons are only found at home; I’ve never picked
one on a farm here. It took more than a drizzle
of soy sauce to mask the way it tasted,
so unforgiving. Burying taste buds in waves,
the melon drowned by a force not found in a usual
.
cup of coffee here. Ginger is quite an unusual
motif for a conversation on a couch, and so are bitter
melons. I wonder what would’ve happened if my wave
had gone unnoticed. How the details you picked
from the fields of our histories would’ve tasted
sour, like raspberries, in my mouth. How your drizzle
.
of anecdotes would’ve dissipated, not unlike a drizzle
of ice cream in summer heat, succumbing to its usual
fate: irretrievably melted—if I’ve never tasted
the soil of an Asian seedbed. Not bitter,
but like ginger, sizzling with silent heat. We’ve picked
a life here, but there’ll always be a wave
.
returning us to that place where we first tasted bitter
melons and ginger. In the usual way that we picked
our way through the drizzle, waiting for that wave.
