We grieved for Kim Jong Il. We had to
believe the country was a mute that had lots
of words to offer. We worked with cows,
ate them, then tree barks and human calves.
We peeled the muscles but kept the hearts
alive. In a country that had lots of humans
to offer, I married young. On honeymoon,
my wife and I stuck to one TV channel.
We had only one TV channel
about boundaries, where they ended and how,
in a way, the outside world also ended. One day,
we swam to China, where words swung
between siren | serenade, sorrow | surreal.
The water was deep, muddy, swirling.
My wife couldn’t make it. I went
quiet like the border of this country that
offered itself as a maybe in a box, or maybe
a jade. Either way, lexemes were truncated—
a plunk of “dis-” from the neck of “quiet”
or “play.” Either way, I guillotined my past below
my neck, fermented it. I bartered my kimchi
away for a second name: Sam Song. And a second wife,
though I miss the submissiveness of my first,
our proper poverty. A scar can archive
and achieve burning to crust in time
for a laugh. I’m happy now in this stillness
that shifts, they say, just the matter of time.
“double illegitimacy; a colloquial term coined in 2012 to refer to newborns
in Hong Kong with both parents of illegal status within the city.”
Me is no/ sperm no egg/ me is out
rage of both/ me is hiccup betwin
lunguage and deficit/ Diu means
fuck/ Diu to me five star flag me tongue can
not say ‘th’ in the in them in nothing
in theatre me hand has no/ other hand but me
other hand to touch diu/ in theatre me is movie
ticket stub/ stubborn popcorn
seed unpopped/ papa do you know me
Chinese name has many meaning/ mean double
no double fly/ like butter
fly lover in theatre mean two woman four hand
arrive at happy ending/ why mama begin
begging like other mama before this
building/ mama is need is noisy mama yell
hum with other nono/ other banner no milk no school
no bed in sea of baby eye/ black
but tiny like sea of sesame dust of/ten mistake
