Mother-tongue

Koy! Here. Nien. There.
Language is the boat that delivers 
memory back and forth, across 
heaving seasons, steady and strong
like the hands that coaxed childbirth 

Duck eggs preserved in mud with
rich yolks orange as permission  
Village remedies for nightsweats
nightmares, fainting and flatulence
among a cabal of sewing women

The Mothertongue that shamed me
now archived like Yaqui in
annotated bibliography with  
footnotes  and diacritics for
dialects of extinctions that 
the Keepers of Tongues 
copyright for publication

Koy! Here. Nien. There or year.
No English spoken here.
The accent’s gotta swing like
the tail of the ox pulling its cart
along the muddy river delta

We were curios, countryfolk 
who followed the crooked path 
to a yoked dream called Mei Kuo
Like Ishi, frozen in time
they say we never really left China

I find her thlay-yip voice wet on my tongue 
its thick, rough drawl tasting of ji-yuk beng
the tip alights on my upper palate
ascending and descending like a gull 
in a cave with its wings clipped 
I wait and wait in the echoing gloom
of post-mortem interrogations
nervous as the crow flies
A rice bin, a Temple well, recalled
A paper memory tossed at sea
This is all she’s left me
The children were laid to rest 
behind locked doors with graffiti
etched in couplets of despair
The night moon parsed its golden light 
on the words, “I will cross the barrier.”

What is your name?
Where and when were you born?
How many houses in row?
Koy! Here. Nien. There. 

Mother watches like a sparrow in a nest 
under the fading eye of the moon
She dreams of fireflies under the bridge
and capturing their flickering light
She dreams of cuttlefish and squid 
swimming swift and steady
stalking smaller fish in a river 
the frozen channel to survive