The Best Dumplings In The World Poem by Michael Philips

With mom spiraling towards death
and us standing around like actors
waiting for stage direction,
Zheng Wei went to work in the kitchen
chopping the cabbage and garlic
preparing the sauce,
We pitched in like Amish,
laughing a little extra
at our clumsy attempts
to roll the dumplings
in a missing man formation
for her to stand there
in the kitchen
rolling and laughing with us
instead of lost under miles of knots.
She would certainly have had a story about this,
about the dumplings she once had in - what was
the name of the place - in Shanghai
where they thought she was a VIP
and showered her with free delicacies.

Zheng Wei lowered the dumplings into the pot.
He could do nothing for my mother
so he made dumplings,
and they tasted like
rescue from a dream of falling