by Lisa Chen
To play the lute in front of cattle.
To cast pearls before swine.
To perform card tricks for rats.
My aunt dragged a hard comb through
her four-year-old daughter's hair:
She jerked and shouted, No yao!-
as though one language could not
straddle the ardor of her indignation.
Havana Twist: hot rumba, salsa jitterbug, or cigar.
Brush-stroked Takee Outee. Any pre-fab pagoda
or jade villa facade sashed with Oriental serif.
American nonsense on Japanese pencil boxes; the cartoon
bandit raccoon on her washcloth bubbling, Shit.
Pink Lady could sing it but not speak it so we loved them for it.
I said switch-shooter and he laughed.
Ruche of subtitles in silent movies
when all I want is to get to the early
flying machines in sepia reels: fast crash
of paper-rigged wings, sashayed streamers.
Losing an argument with the air.
Jesus called and my darling sugarbabe answered-
so goes a tombstone in Paris, Tennessee.
The ancient Egyptians built pyramids for a reason, he insists. Think Aztec,
think dollar bill. In his glove compartment he keeps a pyramid carved from
oak, its center hollowed out to hold a copper scouring pad-a conductor,
understand? Right before he approaches her door, he pauses in the car, rubs
his hands raw with the pad, soaks up the energies. You got a hot date you
need magic hands.
Rent an attic room, buy a silver suit.
When I called and hung up at the sound of your voice, I meant,
Are you still there? Up at this hour? I meant not try again
with us but to prove my life continuous, not slapdash vignettes.
Each time it grows more difficult, this retrieval and banishment.
Next door, the tiniest vacuum working two feet of carpet;
beater whirring eggs into a froth; a man's vacant face
as he labors with an electric toothbrush; vitamin-rich
supplement, blendered; woman, solo, coming.
Not soot's black farina, but star rust, flaking.
Slippage of the mother tongue-first conversation,
then a few sentences, then every other word-
and peepshow remnants-how are you, then phlegm,
then fart, then I love you, then annoying-to-death,
then meet you again.
