Coco Huang reading ‘Tongueless’

My first tongue I ate myself,

       swallowed with 苦泪 

       when I said the sky was green, not b(绿)

       and they laughed first, then kicked

              the moon

       has bruises too, 你看 – 

       one from hair too short for braids

       two from eyes like slits in dough

       –and yet it glows,

       多么美丽

       if only I were as brave

       if only I were as pretty

              new tongues grow like duckweed

              innocuous leaves buoyant, while

              sucking roots sip from the deep

              how sweetly他 slips to “he”     | 我 slips to “me”

                     no thanks to my poor gardening

                     I speak with a stump,

                     blunt-axed syllabic swings

                     inflected with self-loathing

                     why should I speak, when

                     silence sounds wiser?
                     .

                     .

                     .

                            eins, zwei, drei

                     in the silence, I sow and reap

                            ein Zweig wächst dabei

                     I coax new tongues to speak

                            io posso, voglio, devo

                     but borrowing bears bitter fruit

                     my tongue is a stranger

                     a stranger in each tongue; 

                     wǒ zì jǐ yě bù míng bái

Glossary and transliterations

Chinese

苦泪 – kǔ lèi: bitter tears

绿 – lǜ: green

你看 - nǐ kàn: look

多么美丽 – duō me měi lì: how beautiful it is

他 – tā: he

我 – wǒ: I/me

wǒ zì jǐ yě bù míng bái – I don’t understand (it) myself

German

eins, zwei, drei: one, two three

ein Zweig wächst dabei: a branch grows (meanwhile)

Italian

io posso, voglio, devo – I can, I want to, I must

Coco X. Huang is a Chinese-Australian writer, musician and scientist. She enjoys reading and writing experimental fiction and poetry and her work has most recently appeared in The Lifted Brow, ARNA, and Hermes. She was a participant in the Citizen Writes Project 2019 and received a 2020 Faber Writing Academy Scholarship. She tweets @cocoxhuang.