BEVERAGE POEM

At the age of 5,
I was first introduced to coffee.
I used to drink ’em every morning
so that I could avoid breakfast at kindergarten.
How I drank:
in a bowl of hot water goes the cup of condensed milk,
a filtre à café on top of it.
Then, I studied the drink:
drops of black hitting the white surface
and blended it out slowly,
& felt a childish crave in the stomach.
When the coffee was one-third of the milk,
I stirred it up & sipped it — as many times as I could
& let the warm fluid penetrate my senses.
Recommendation: if you’re a 5-year-old,
you can skip breakfast
because a 5-year-old does not know
about colonialism —
At the age of 6,
I knew about Pepsi,
which was only allowed after a big feast.
Mom said it’s good for digestion,
but too much of it will lead to cancer.
In fact, I could never finish the whole can myself
even as a grown adult, plus a cup of ice.
I saw some American drank the whole thing up,
straight from the aluminum container.
“PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack and
beverage corporation…” —
Thoughts: maybe capitalism is both abundant and capacious;
Recommendation: “better when drinking cold”
Caution: too much drinking causes cancer (?) —
Is this just a Vietnamese thing?
I don’t know, & neither do I expect to finish the whole can;
I’m just simply curious about the people who can —
As I’ve drunk them both,
I write poetry.