Polite Punk Penelope

I want to write
a kick ass work
about a kick ass woman running
an Izakaya in Ithaca,

New York, that is.

She lives in the village
full of butt pirates who pillage
not so modestly
plates of yakitori and sashimi
while making disparaging jokes about "fish"
in a tone rather too queeny
for my tastes
at least

I want to write about anger
forged in a love
galvanized in the veils
of a colored
invisibility

Every plate is her tapestry,
for she is a polite punk Penelope
fighting for every Telemachus
for every person who's tired of being a food
a single, sordid
sorted word

I am not a fucking chicken
korma
I am not the sushi between your chapsticked lips
I am not the slave between your legs.

Xenia? Quit the hospitality
bullshit,
because I am Xena.
Hear me roar as I say
Irasshaimase!

How dare you eat my food,
how dare you drink my ale.
You've overstayed your welcome--
get into those taxis that you hail

When you think "Japan" at least,
I want you to imagine a human,
and not a kimono or your PS3,
and definitely not our goddamn tea

Everyone is beautiful,
and so are you,
for I love you dearly, terribly too
but not the terrible things you often do

Please do not silence
do not eliminate
the beauty of others just as great.

For if my advice
you choose to ignore,
I hope you do adore
the effect of ex-lax green tea ice-cream
working right as you leave this
very
door.

Sorry, we're closed!