I can’t quite chop the chives as quickly as Mom does
or mix the filling all together in a bowl,
the pork squelching against the chopsticks,
as effortlessly as her.
I don’t even try to make the wrappers
with the kneading and the
folding and the
rolling and the
cutting.
My wrappers come from a big plastic wrapper,
wheat circles cut by a steel machine and
packaged for lazy kids like me.
I’ve watched her a million times, but my fingers
freeze when sculpting the dumpling,
caked in flour and meat as they try to
make a fold
and shut the edges
until the filling comes spilling out
because I haven’t learned how much goes in.
Every fifth one bursts as they boil in the water,
and when I fish out the ones with the fewest
manufacturing defects,
they don’t quite taste right either.
They don’t smell like home or
taste of hands that have learned to cook from love
and continue to cook for love.
They taste like cheap imitation,
a blind mime kneeling and
begging at the wall for a
culture that isn’t his.