MARY BONINA
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Poems from
Lunch in Chinatown

Lunch in Chinatown

The day after Christmas, the sidewalks
were slippery with snow and ice.
Wei Wei took my arm as we started across
Kneeland Street to Tyler for dim sum.
At first I didn't know why she would hold on,
not until I looked down, making sure
my feet were on safe ground and I saw
she wore bright yellow summer shoes,
like ballet flats, but with hard soles.

The air was bitter cold,
but scented with ginger and sesame,
and ginger-and-sesame-flavored noodles
were what we ordered, both of us pointing
to the same thing on the menu, the “Number 12”
translated into English for me.
And we laughed at what we had in common;
certainly language wasn't it.

I knew nothing about Wei Wei then
not even that she had worked as a doctor
in China's largest hospital. I only knew
that she didn't like the cold,
that she was afraid of falling
and that she wanted very much to learn English.

--Published in City River of Voices, Denise Bergman, ed., West End Press, NM, 1992

Practicum

The train stops at Porter:
a group of children, a field trip
from a day care center, board and
immediately start counting aloud
for their teacher — one,two,three,four...--
the number of station stops on the subway map.

This is ordinary, yet I can't help smiling
or noticing the man next to me, smiling, too.
I think: he has not lived in the city long,
is too open, looking right into my eyes.
He is not afraid of asking either:
How do you call that—what they are doing?

Numbers,I say. Do you speak Spanish?
Numero? Isn't that it?
No,
he says. Portuguese. We say, ‘contas’ what they do.

Oh! Counting. They are counting, I say.
Or you can say, ‘They count.’

The man feels sure he may ask now for other words,
words more pressing for him at the moment.

Also, for example, he begins,
I go to meet you and you are not there.
How can I say this?

So, it is about a missed connection,
someone's disappointment—his own--
or his excuse for being someone else's
that he wants to talk, to know
proper form, the right words, to smooth things over.

Always, I would rather imagine
than ask for context, so I invent
that a woman is involved. I don't
wonder if he stood her up on purpose--
not that—he is too concerned with
getting it all just right.

You can believe what you want:
that he missed an appointment
with his doctor, lawyer, or
someone he had hoped to work for.
I perfer to believe that
he owns no watch rather than that
he was afraid of some meeting.

The children keep on
practicing their numbers, finding
everything in the world can be counted:
how many tunnel lights flash past their window,
noticing that several passengers are wearing hats,
that some do not have a seat,
revising all the time, for our world is in flux.
And when the train emerges from underground
onto Longfellow Bridge, they begin
a census of sailboats on the Charles.

The Portuguese man is leaving.
Goodbye. Nice speaking with you, he says.
Silent after, yet his lips keep moving
just as if he's praying, only I think instead
he is going over words I gave him, practicing
repeating in his mind, so he won't forget,
saying, When I got there, you were gone.
​

--First published in Red Brick Review, Spring, 1992

English Lesson Plan: Present Perfect

                                   1.
The Roz Chast cartoon in The New Yorker
shows a goofy mother, father, and children
seated all in a line, pressed tight together
between the sofa arms, staring at the TV:
The Lintners, the caption says,
Stuck on the Sofa since 1987.

I show it to the class, thinking: will they laugh?
The clipping is an example I use
to illustrate the present perfect tense.
It gets passed around. Everyone nods,
very very serious about learning
the present perfect tense.

Q. How long have the Lintners been stuck on the sofa?
A. The Linters have been stuck on the sofa since 1987.
                                   2.
Stuck on a sofa, hypnotized by TV...brings up new
vocabulary. I explain to be in a trance.
This leads to sleepwalking, then to daydreaming,
and finally to hallucination.

Hallucination inspires Margarita to tell a story:
her last job...the State Hospital...there was a man
who had lost his mind when he lost his wife.
Whenever he got angry, says Margarita,
he would hallucinate that he was still in Cuba,
still in the hot sun. He would mime
cutting sugar cane with his machete.
                                   3.
Someone is using the word cuckoo.
I must explain that it is the name of a bird,
and not the right word to describe someone who is ill.
The Haitians think I'm talking about the owl, a bird that
frightens them, its face—the face of a cat, the eyes--
When they say nocturne I know--
their mistake, draw an owl on the chalkboard.
                                   4.
And the lesson for the day ends this way,
me saying, It is an owl, not a cuckoo.
Haven't you ever seen a clock shaped like a house
and a little bird comes out of the upstairs window saying
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! the exact number of times
to tell the hour? The present perfect tense, like time
goes on and on, or like the Lintners, or the man who has
been cutting sugar cane ever since his wife died, or
the owl that has been awake all night long, hooting.
​

--Published in Hanging Loose, 50

Mary Bonina

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  • New Release
  • About
  • Publications
    • Books & Chapbooks
    • Literary Magazines & Anthologies
  • Excerpts
    • Fiction
    • Memoir
    • Poetry >
      • Poems from Clear Eye Tea
      • Poems from Living Proof
      • Poems from Lunch in Chinatown
      • Other Published Poems
  • Calendar
    • Events
    • Past Events >
      • 2020-2024
      • 2010-2019
  • View & Listen
  • Links
  • Writing Help
    • Workshops
    • Tutoring
  • Contact