Chinatown, 1975

by Brett Rutherford

Gossip among
young Asian men,
with whom I dine,
    a guest, a stranger,
yet somehow as in
    as they are out.

Outsiders always,
     some seldom stray
     North of Canal Street,
employment limited
to under-the-radar
exploited jobs, unless

the overseas mother,
the rich uncle,
paid one’s way
to a good school,
escape into
the melting pot.

Slowly, I learn
the pecking order:

the ABCs
(American-born Chinese),

rich Asians
     on monthly checks
     from anxious parents,
well-off Taiwan
    or Singapore families;

“jump ships,” the
mainland arrivals
     from Mao’s horrors,
cardless, furtive,
evading questions.

Americans see none of this,
each bowing waiter,
     each unseen worker
in kitchen or sweatshop,
a Charlie Chan cipher.

Outcast among
a colony of outcasts,
I am at home here
at this round table whose
lazy susan rotates
a casserole of friendship.

From here, we head out
for the Chinese opera.