POETRY: Ode to Everyone At the Table

by Jenne Hsien Patrick

Ode to Everyone at the Table

When Mama cooks dinner she makes one dish

per person plus one or two; we patiently wait,

tightly packed, seated round the table made long

with two extensions that are never put away. My thighs brush

against 阿姨 on one side and my sister on the other,

at the long plastic wrapped table you can't see the top of,

every inch is covered in plates of food. In front of me

is a mountain of rice in a bowl and a whole fish in broth,

its eyes intact, its limp tail hanging over the lip, dripping

sauce onto my napkin and I can't help it, I lean in to lick

the puddle before we start eating. Everyone is at the table

not just on holidays but every Saturday night, our door is open

to all but no one eats until Mama sits down.

Some Saturdays Mama is tired from the hours at the shipyard

so there is a hot pot or two plugged in with a tail of three or four

extension cords to reach the wall outlet. Raw eggs cracked

and whisked in tiny porcelain bowls, crushing sesame and yellow

yolk, pasted into sauce. Boiling, boiling, our faces grow red

from steam and sauna. 大舅舅 is reaching across the table

curling raw meat onto his chopsticks, he asks me to count

1-2-3-4 as he dunks it into the bubbling broth — this is the amount

of time to perfectly pink every slice of beef

that Mama has pounded for us with her serrated splintered mallet,

each bite in our mouth first tendered by her hands.

Everyone is at the table: Daddy, who has just come back from a run,

婆婆 who just changed into her nicest red sweater,

my cousin's 婆婆 who only drinks hot water.

The brothers and sisters, they all show up: Uncle Chris

and 阿姨 who is immediately kicked out of the kitchen by her sister,

小舅舅 who stays out of the kitchen, hangs out with us kids,

大舅舅 and 舅媽 who are late from closing up the donut shop,

and the cousins, we hide and sneak candies in 婆婆's bedroom.

I run to greet them all at the front door when they arrive,

they pick me up, whirl me around, call me darling

in every one of our languages that I know all mean we are home.

Mama sends out no invitations, there are no formal table settings,

dinner is Mama's temple, so many dishes on the table

like it's Lunar New Year every Saturday. What is dinner

but everyone at the table, that's how we do it, Mama,

everyone is at the table, stop cooking, come eat.

Feature illustration by Jenne Hsien Patrick.