MiPOesias Magazine 2007 - Asian-American Issue

Shin Yu Pai

HI-LIFE

open for business
365 days a year

at the 24-hour
convenience store

discover Life Partner,
one freezer case away

from readymade
bento boxes beneath

the fluorescent glare,
a concept of freshness

and renewal, smart
shoppers pulling

buttered toast
from the backend

of springloaded displays
restocking newspapers

and underwear
the daily cycle

of salary men
after school girls

& teenage shut-ins -
in two years he came

to just three meals
at his parents' table,

though living five feet
from the kitchen -

hardboiled egg-
headed, pimple-faced

bag boys offer
non-perishable

gifts at checkout

LEARNING ABC

Asexual
Bug-eating
Coolies

Also known as
Bananas, boat people
Chink-eyed

American
Born
Chinese

Dogeater
Egg roll dick
FOB
Gaysian
Hop Sing
Inbred
Jap
Kung-fu
Lemonhead
Mook
Nine-iron
Oriental
Paper bride
Queer
Rice picker
Slant
Twinkie
Underdog
Villain
Wo Fat
eXotic
Yolk
Zipperhead

LOVE BOAT*

what we shared in common
lidless eyes and a propensity
for emotional dysfunction

the last ditch effort for
aging immigrant parents
to secure their children

an appropriate “match”

we visit opera villages
where tourists don costume,
role play ancient traditions

team-building activities:
after river-rafting,
hike suspension bridges

in Taroko Gorge every-
where the possibility of
death surrounded by

mothers and small children
on holiday –– images burned
deep into a consciousness

propaganda films
the official version
of 2-28

* the nickname for ABC youth tours sponsored by the Democratic Progressive and the Kuo Min Tang political parties

Shin Yu Pai is the author of The Love Hotel Poems (Press Lorentz, 2006), Unnecessary Roughness (xPress(ed),2005),Equivalence (La Alameda Press, 2003) and Ten Thousand Miles of Mountains and Rivers (Third Ear Books, 1998). Her work is anthologized in The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry (Wisdom Books, 2005) and America Zen: A Gathering of Poets (Bottom Dog Press, 2004).