Tongue

by Yu Yoyo
     trs. by Sophia Kidd

tongue’s still not free
I sit and wait

wait for it to awake   rebel
wait for a gurgle of water
it will be a sick sentence

expecting to be heard
then disappear

because the tongue is moist   lazy
opaque
it cannot discern truth

I will analyse failure
war spreads by air
silent fatal wound

brutality bred in a petri dish
emotional alternation
bacterial proliferation
tongue completes the experiment

since having someone to beat
there are footprints back and forth
dressing is imprisonment, undressing
is a cage within a cage

since having someone to beat I found my tongue
one more useless thing in the world
flog   shoot cannons   death by dismemberment

it’s better to stir-fry
and feed the hungry

it’s not hard to eat people
our stomach is drippin
with sulphuric acid

how many disasters have been digested
let’s digest another ‘why’

tongue is getting stiffer
trapped in the mouth and ornamental
in the process of ossifying
borrowing the appearance of amber
and the timidity of insects