Kim's Vietnamese Cafe, by Laurel Benjamin

I'd apply red lipstick then call my reflection beautiful, by Megan Merchant (USA) 2024. Click image for artist site.

Kim's Vietnamese Cafe
 
Noon, and the restaurant walls peel like noodles, 
wrists flicking chopsticks and spoons. Students come 
 
for a cheap meal, talk loudly like newsprint, reading 
habits fuchsia-ing their lips. The doorbell chimes. 
 
Bare legs orders one bun with lemongrass tofu 
and one ban mi. After the accident, I came daily. 
 
The same order to go. Ate in our broken house 
where the bed stood, dresser intact, 
 
train passing every few minutes. Where a truck 
ran into the subspace, where I sat in the living room. 
 
Where a mirror broke. I couldn't rise 
from the chair. Sylvia Plath's poetry split. 
 
Survived the impact. Some would call it chance. 
Now, I've waited beyond the usual five minutes 
 
for food, worry about walking home, how the skirt 
I've sewn and worn for years has ripped 
 
on the walk here. The fabric has withstood 
more than that, yet I'll ask to borrow an apron, 
 
maybe safety pins. Kim approaches with a wide smile, 
body swaying with combo soup, swirled pink-white
 
 radish floating above layers. I picture her escape years ago, 
across an ocean with her brother, their own exodus 
 
relegated to a fishing boat, small craft warning 
as larger vessels ignored their plea. Some say they ate 
 
soup, no salt. Or worse. And as I dig in past the radish, 
boundaries disappear, shimmy of thin-sliced beef, 
 
bok choi, mushrooms, shrimp, fishcake. Noodles cut 
from one piece of cloth, cut from the clanking kitchen 
 
as Kim keeps the place holy.
 ​

​Laurel Benjamin

Laurel Benjamin's new collection, Flowers on a Train, is forthcoming from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. She is a San Francisco Bay Area poet, active with the Women’s Poetry Salon. She curates Ekphrastic Writers and is a reader for Common Ground Review. Current publications: Pirene's Fountain, Lily Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Taos Journal of Poetry, Mom Egg Review, Gone Lawn, Nixes Mate. She received an Honorable Mention for the Ruben Rose Memorial Poetry Competition. Laurel holds an MFA from Mills College. She invented a secret language with her brother. Find her at: https://www.laurelbenjamin.com