The Giant Chinese King buffet I remember in my collar bones
and in the warm trays of my thighs.

When I was twelve I thought
China was fifteen miles away with a big
red sign that read "Giant King Buffet"

chinese hibachi sushi mexican american
food for one price children free
on sundays with two parents
one parent or two children
or your uncle who also plays
the role of your father when
your father works for the moon
and eats general tsos chicken
from take-out boxes at 6am before
you go to seventh grade homeroom

I thought China was a plastic
water fountain where the tangled dragons 
dipped their claws for koi--
a kanji symbol that could mean
anything about rivers or a mountains
or moons or mothers or fathers 
or fishing in wooden sandals.
I was a chopstick-snapped-finger-- holding
onto the bends of my belly
between the sticks like the
girth of a shrimp egg roll.
Fry me lightly or rice roll me in Spring--
I was a koi creature for everything
but buffets-- my uncle and I were
tongue travelers-- draped myself
in silks at the head of a wobbly
table-- cheeks of buffet steam--
we were queens, the both of us--
only I ate more ice cream and stole
more chopsticks to put in my hair.
I still think China is fifteen miles
away-- it's the kind of China that
we could all believe in
the one we didn't want to know
the language of-- the kind
that never knew what gun powder was
used for-- the kind with french 
fries and chicken fingers in the
hot trays next to pools of lo mein
and sunbathed sandboxes of chicken fried 
rice. This was all before I learned
much about my body. Before I knew
how many egg rolls fit in my belt loops
and how much duck sauce it would take
to fly me to China. I learned that
there are few times in life you
can remember that you were once
a Chinese queen who stacked steamed plates
and ate honey dew from her fingers.
When I'm hungry I still feel the
same steam in my cheeks and I 
think about how many people
have become royalty over a bold
buffet lamp. 

Did I tell you that
I knew I was fat? It was the kind of 
thing that I always knew and at
the ending of the fourth plate--
slowly in China 
I began to realize my thighs and
how they rubbed together like
steamed pork dumplings-- people
don't love dumplings-- people eat
dumplings-- licked-plate and crumbled doughnut fingers 
I was not something to be loved--
I was a soy sauce packet and I knew it--
too bold to hold a fork-- I'll stab
the honey dew with the chop stick--
Boys,
stab me clumsy like an egg roll
duck sauce wrist-ed girl
who thought she could grow up
warm under the lights on the buffet table--
they never told me it was only a matter of
time before I would be eaten too--
dissected with a chop stick
piece by piece like a plate of
squid tentacles-- stuck to 
each other-- writhing in the
heat lamp-- HAIL Tso and his chicken--
HAIL Lo Mein and the thick noodles of
her hair-- HAIL koi fish and all the times 
I have fallen into plastic fountains
trying to escape the heat
of the buffet lamps-- sunburning my
cheeks-- 
Boys,
use these thighs as your trays 
as you may-- it's one price--
all you can eat with your mouth 
and your fork
Boys,
Get your money's worth-- stack your
plates high-- you Giant Chinese
King.