Pepper meant, at most, I’d sneeze,
before I married a Chinese.
Now peppers put the Pao! in Kung
and have no mercy on my tongue.
My sisters’ husbands cook. How nice!
How generous they are . . . with spice.
I weep, while coughing up a lung.
They have no mercy on my tongue.
Jaideep learned cooking from his mom.
When he says tikka, I think bomb.
Who’d guess a lentil or a mung
would have no mercy on my tongue?
Reza makes a mean falafel.
Mean indeed! So good, yet awful.
Makes my histamines high-strung,
and has no mercy on my tongue.
My friends, of course, are just as dear,
and keep my sinuses as clear.
Before each Happy Birthday’s sung,
they have no mercy on my tongue.
I'm sure they heard me in the lobby
when Tomoko's fresh wasabi
staged my Götterdämmerung.
She had no mercy on my tongue.
Chilly once connoted cold.
Hotdish meant a casserole’d
be served, when I was very young
and had no “Mercy!” on my tongue.
But now I live in San Diego.
Bye-bye, blandness. Hasta luego.
Chili’s definition’s swung
to have no mercy on my tongue.
And hot dish? Oh, by all that’s holy,
don't mistake for guacamole . . .
Salsa verde! I got stung:
it had no mercy on my tongue.