The verse form haiku is Japanese; most of the Bay area's Asian food markets are not, though some, naturally, stock various staple items associated with Japanese cuisine. Still, when wandering through such intriguingly foreign purveyors as Tampa's marvelous Oceanic Oriental Supermarket (1609 N. Tampa St.), I'm often moved to appropriate a bit of the immediate culture in order to express my wonder — much like those tourists who come home from a 10-day vacation abroad and insist on butchering some other country's language at dinner parties for the next four months. Also, like those and all other Americans, I invariably get it wrong. Hence, the following collection of terse, eloquent poesy rendered in the style of a nation minimally, if at all, represented by the places that inspired it in the first place. God bless America.

ears snare wondrous tunes
mystical cartoon soundtrack

I can't understand
black bean chili sauce
falls like spicy rain to douse

cuttlefish crackers
"Meat Juice Dried Bean Curd"
might sell better were it called
"Happy Time Fun Chew!"

"Ground Fried Fish" sold in a can
not one brand but six
as if it matters

can't decide between
seabed coconut dessert
or the white fungus

glazed fish eyes peer out
dead captives behind the glass
do they eat the head?

Chinese scenes of China
cast in china, made there too
the logic frightens

foods don't hide in brands
"Special Fruit Pudding Jelly"
but maybe they should

so many cookies
in British tins make me think
it's a Hong Kong thing

workers line, stuff, wrap
things with the pages of the
paper I work for

This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2003.