Smiles emerge sideways

On a roadside wooden cart
on four wheels,
brownish cooking oil
in a frying pan on a gas stove
is boiling. Giving off white fumes.

The vendor, a Chinese woman
in her late forties, early fifties
petite, slim, wearing a big
broad brimmed straw hat

picks up a handful
of cockroaches, some crawling,
other dead, from a bucket
on the floor under her cart

and places them into the boiling oil.
She fries them to golden brown.
Nearby stand and squat her clients,
holding in their hands fried goodies

on plates molded out of banana leaves.
They pick two or three fried cockroaches
at a time, dip them into watery
reddish sweet and sour sauce.

They open their mouth wide
and slide them on their tongues.
Jaws open and close and emit sounds:
Crunch, crunch. Crunch crunch.

Smiles emerge sideways.
Eyes glitter in happiness.
What a delicacy! Fried cockroaches
served on banana leaves in Hongkong.