Love Us Like You Love Our Food

By Anhvu Buchanan

​​On Monday you grab a banh mi sandwich for lunch
then laugh at the photo of your friends all making slanted eyes.

On Tuesday you order Thai, wait patiently for your noodles to arrive
then joke with your roommates about whether or not the food has kung flu.

On Wednesday you scarf down a plate of egg rolls during happy hour
then go on a date with us and call it activism.

On Thursday you enjoy a steaming hot bowl of pho
then shove us face first to the ground and call us chinks.

On Friday you delicately dip your sushi rolls into soy sauce mixed with wasabi
then throw a bucket of water on us and tell us we don’t belong here.

On Saturday you order Chinese food, grab your potstickers and lo mein to go
then kick us to the floor, stomp on us repeatedly like a bug that won’t die,
making sure to not get any blood on the takeout bag.

On Sunday you sit around a round table at brunch ordering dim sum
then on the way home you see them pushing us onto the train tracks
but turn and face the other way, your belly however, already full of culture.

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Anhvu Buchanan is the author of The Disordered (sunnyoutside press) and Backhanded Compliments & Other Ways to Say I Love You (Works on Paper Press ) and Which Way To Go or Here (Platypus Press) co-written with Brent Piller. he was the recipient of the James D. Phelan Award and also received an Individual Artists Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. He received an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State. He currently teaches in San Francisco and can be found online at www.anhvubuchanan.com or on twitter @anhvubuchanan.