“comedy / is tragedy plus thyme.“

“At the Chinese buffet, my Father loves to try new foods. / We follow him. We keep up with suburbia. Keep up with the jonesing.

“When I think of food, I don’t necessarily think of literal ingredients. Instead, I imagine everything that goes into community nourishment — the cultures, histories, lessons, family lineages, beloved recipes, social migrations, and geographical influences, each a form of resistance.”

“jack eats spoiled food la la la la la”

“Sing at the top of my lungs, pretend I am whistle-tone Mariah / as I whine my hips, a triple threat with my smile”

“In this poem, which is an attempt at condensing superfluous (elitist?) (white?) logic into bite-sized words, further packaged within the sonnet form, further stretched left-to-right, the poet analyzes…”

“in the slim hallway of my kitchen / my father

cleans the crabs without the usual silver tools /”