HOT POT
Carrie Chang
1.
Hot Pot
eccentricities
Like a bathtub with blue fleas,
was commotion with motion
On a sweet December day,
when the svelte fish
were islets, and eyeless
In sweet n’ sour soup;
divided by fraction, there
were squid-sprouts in that
group. Some
Rude lake of awakening with the chopsticks
for free, some chintzy steam now rising
In a pouf of insanity, the lollygagging
Foodie is whodunnit in plaid, while
Lao-tzu is eating his oyster-mushrooms,
the whole world gone quite mad.
2.
Do you see this strange
Admixture of feckless light?
It burns a hole
In my shoe.
And Life will thrum for some
Three times, and others
Just eschew the mark. It’s
the fairy number six,
that makes the sea cucumber
Dizygotic, thin,
With knotted, surface, and
dubious intent,
you let the meat go
Verily in. The vermicelli
Starts to stink, but what about
the kitchen sink. The ether
Hits the balmy air. Ding
Hao, it’s not as if the urchin
Looked so there. The party
Hats were pleasingly
Square.
Carrie Chang was born in New York in 1970, and grew up in California, in the Bay Area.. She has published three books of poetry, Laundromat, and Fairytale Origami, and If Gretel were Chinese. She enjoys the spacy texture of thousand-year-old egg and imperial dan dan noodle eaten in gross contempt of popular diets and such. She is the editor of this fine journal.