my lover went out to buy chinese food, late getting back,
         3 a.m. and she still isn't here;
though they don't let on, my italian parents worry
         that i must be starving.
they don't know i'm by my eastern window
         fiddling with a pen and rice paper
and my lover's in the middle of the river
         in a boat competing with li po
over who can write the best vegetable poem.