Bread and Soup
Beneath the bare bulb
we gather to eat our evening meal
of bread and soup. Here behind the
mission walls the kind priest
speaks to us in euphemisms.
He avoids staring at our brown roasted faces,
our hardboiled hands, our violet veins.
He mouths his words like a fish,
careful not to mention China to us,
who are now fatherless and motherless
in this new country.
He does not know that
we have created our own miracle
that has transformed the stale hard crust
into crisp crackling pork skin;
the zucchini soup into
the finest winter melon broth.
Our lips, puckered by pungent memories,
smack in satisfaction at this,
our only taste of home.
© Nancy Hom 2002
Published in “So Luminous the Wildflowers,” 2002, by Tebot Bach
