I toss the book onto the table and squeeze into a booth
meant for thinner people. When the waitress brings the meal,
I eat the fortune cookie first. The narrow strip of paper says
You will have a bright future.
I dig into the sesame shrimp, pondering the use of the word “will.”
I had a bright future,just minutes ago, when I came in, destined for
a fortune cookie that would tell me I will have a bright future.
In the present, the people who work here are nice. They speak
a little English. I don’t know their names, though I eat here often,
and there is an easy familiarity between us, ritualized with smiles,
many thank you’s and you’re welcome’s. I don’t ask, but I would
like to know her name, the woman at the counter, the one who guessed,
before I spoke, which of the daily specials I would order. They all seem
to know me here, especially her. I have named her Girl with Plain Face
and Nice Body. I wonder what it would be like to make love
with someone whose language I cannot understand, but then I remember.
She remembers that I always get diet cola and egg roll, that I never
order the chicken wing. I will have a bright future, but doesn’t
the future start now? I take a number, but they never pay attention
to my number when my order comes out of the kitchen.
So, they must have a name for me, something in Chinese,
something they always write on my ticket.
from Punching Through the Egg of Space
Richard Allen Taylor, Poet 