The chopsticks bent at a woebegone angle,
entangled with sorrowful suey and limpid shrimp.
Fortune cookie laughed its paper smile
all the while it hitched itself around the fable.

A taco tooted hurrahs as chimichanga
turned over on its refried plate, dated
by frijoles fate of paste, fringed with tequila
eyes of tomatoes, layered in sauces of fiery tastes.

Shellfish skittered in pots of bitters and spice
delighted the tongues of riddles as New Orleans
remembers its past Septembers, and, towers fall down.
Memories of past ‘fees’ should strengthen

the wee world of Now.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 9/11/05