Why eat with splinters?

We were sitting in a Thai joint
right down the block from some signs
and storefronts that I recognized
on the Upper West Side.
Even in a city that big
it's possible for the mind
to crystallize specific images
certain names of places
and bright neon lights
though if asked by a stranger
looking for directions
one shrugs for lack of
cognizant knowledge
of the intersection.

"...but I'm OK, really," I said
in response. Luckily my experience
with chopsticks had been mostly
limited to sushi, and even then
only within the past eight months.
The rice on my plate was posing
a bigger problem than I'd anticipated
but that made it easier to focus my attention
on something else and sound more
convincing with my previous statement.

"Are you sure?" she asked with
her empty plate sitting in front of her
as it had been for five minutes already
due to her proficiency with the
dreaded wooden utensils.

"Yes." I looked her in the eye that time.
A snap pea crunched between my tense jaws.

When the charade finally showed
its inevitable demise I abandoned my feeble attempt
to come off as more cultured, more talented
more stubborn than I truly am
by placing the chopsticks down on my napkin
and picking up my fork. It had been
there waiting all along, whether or not
I wanted to admit it. The rice had foiled me
enough for one sitting. Besides, how else
was I supposed to cut the tails off the shrimp
without using the unprovided knife? Believe me
when I say that the food tasted better when
it didn't have to be hunted with two shards of wood.

The rest of the meal went down smoothly
not a drop of the chili-garlic sauce going to waste
not a grain of rice escaping my aim.
Another brief chapter had been concluded.
I'd miss parts of it; even the undercooked vegetables.

Satisfied, I placed my utensils-- all of them--
on my bare plate in a triumphant show
of completion that the waiter noticed
and responded to without missing a beat.
He carried our dishes away and
yelled something in his native tongue
at the waitress passing by him. For once
I didn't bother wondering if it was about me.

"Come on. Let's get out of here."

Those familiar signs were still out on the avenue
but they looked more out of place somehow
as though part of a dream that
may never recur. It's easy
to get lost on the grid of Manhattan.
It's much harder to find yourself again.
Start with what you know.
For me it was a fork.