Contemplating Dumplings
I am contemplating parcels of white
contentment, watching them steam
under paper lanterns, their faces trickling
with multiculturalism as they tuck into platefuls
of dumplings and wonton, of noodles that slip
from wooden chopsticks, and I wonder –
if I can beckon the neglected heritage
of my second self, the ancestral half
masked by my name, now piqued
by the rising sharpness of chilli and soy
could I release, with one inspired bite, an Asian-
Australian poem into the lantern-lit night?
A poem of yearning confusion, of desire
for a homeland I never knew, of a journey
from steamer to Sydney hawker-style alleyway
pluming with the spices of my mother’s childhood
a poem plump with meaning that a generation
of schoolkids will be invited to decipher
for their HSC standard English exam, Module A:
Language, Identity and Culture
salivating as they trace the trope of dumplings
which oscillates from the literal to the figurative
as if wobbling between the chopsticks
and the suspicious lips of a table full of gwai lo
those soft parcels of white contentment
now stained by the dark soy of a hybrid identity –
perhaps this will help me in the search
for my own becoming, a third way
to the front of the queue
for another serve of dumplings.