Taiwan days (coda)
In the morning, the hymn of an overhead fan barks at the heat
rhyme the wind into a litany in the backroom
between language and the drum drum drum
of syntax and body
the bespoke part line in a book below:
our bodies drum and dampened vowel homing for space
where my tongue horizon'd the unpronounceable twitch of tone
when the Nightmarket grilled-pork seasoned my vowels
what I was born not to ease sound around
but what I was taught to work hard toward
like a leather bit, words
gollum'd into shape from training and the taught ache of intonation
the stretched river side for two small sounds
I could not nor have not, mastered
the beat and the continued even when slipping away
da'an, wan an, wo ai knee’d
as hearts set off running toward the sea from Nehui at 10
to Tamsui at midnight where the sun drowns beneath the bullying moon
we fell inevitably into the ocean with the fish and the luminescence
blue as a long life buckled underneath everything
what is left the land composed of your letters and the shallows above me.
