Clare Chu was raised in Malta and England, and has adopted Los Angeles as her home. She is an art curator, dealer, lecturer and writer who has authored and published twelve books and numerous academic articles on Asian art. This year she was a participant in San Miguel Poetry Week. Her poetry is featured in a continuing collaboration with Hong Kong-based calligraphic and landscape painter Hugh Moss, in which poet and artist expand traditional media boundaries. Her poetry is published or is forthcoming in The Comstock Review, The Esthetic Apostle, The Raw Art Review, Cathexis Northwest Press and 2River View.
How to Fry Okra
Last weekend, Sabiqah couldn’t gather her words,
reluctant to admit she was homeless again,
their ‘Welcome’ mat covered by a blanket of ash,
that after his third stroke, her husband Frank
came home from the hospital
with a hankering for fried okra,
just like his MeeMaw made,
that she refused him,
because she was angry he’d been back to hospital,
because in Bangladesh she’d always made Dharosh Bhaji,
because this was the South — his home,
that Frank was petulant with her,
went downstairs to the empty apartment
where her mother, lately converted, newly passed,
had lain for a week in the scorching heat,
that he fried a skillet of okra,
dipped in buttermilk, dredged in cornmeal,
managed to set the pan alight,
poured water on flaming peanut oil,
and with enthusiasm — or so it seemed to Sabiqah —
burnt their house down in its entirety.