I think the next project may be Chinese Restaurants.

YENCHING RESTAURANT, HARVARD SQUARE, CAMBRIDGE, MA

	for Catherine Meng





I want to ask how you're eating

out there,	alone



at the In-n-Out Burger?

Me, there's nothing so

	I dunno,

		white  	as sitting here 

in the dim fold of the Yenching fighting

	the urge to order double

& proffer Mooshi to the house gods, to the 

angry dead or  the ones who never

	were.  I never really eat

alone, you see, it says

	GHOST BUFFET above all the doors

I enter, & for the spook

	brigade it's 24/7 all you can eat

hysteria.  I'm here tonight with General Gao, Gao 

	from Hunan & I think

Herd Boy & Weaving Girl, too.

	It all worked out for them in the end, he

quips, over by the fishtank

	I think she's putting her head 

		in his lap & the invisible waitress

don't know what to feed

	the ones without mouths; 

I hear out there where you are they

get burgers Animal Style & 

	it's true any man is 1

		among 999 other islands, we're

makling progress: 1 uh

	1 um 

		1.

	Here Gao,  chere Gao, keeps

poking me with his wicked

	stick:			Monster!

			

				Quitit.



				Heretic!



				Quitit.



There's something important he says  

	the way

    all these birds are screeching & he says

the end of the world, the very end, that

  	tastes like chicken also.