Aphasia

1. 
Blackened birdcage. Torn magnolia petals.
The door, latchless, swings open.
I become your tongue. 
15,000 sculptures in honeycombed grottoes: 
out of my mouth flies a Chinese bird spider.
 
Do you know not to catch it in your hand?
 
Quick, here’s Blanchot:
1. discover the generosity of disaster
2. ladies and gentlemen”) Celan wanted to tell us
 
A girl found at Hiroshima was singing to her doll.
 
Verse b. To impose upon; to cozen, cheat
1. Turning to begin another line
 
2.
Every good marriage begins in tears, a Kyrgyz saying goes.
Outside were ten men. The second man pulled her hands away.
 
Ala kachuu: grab and run. 
Cheaper than paying $800 plus a cow. 
 
Her father says
I’ll let him take her. Love comes and goes.
 
In the heart 
of the country is a lake that empties 
and then refills: dammed 
by a glacier under 
which the water drains, 
leaving ice in bed.
 
A land where tribes have roamed, and wild sheep with long horns
 
Blind Blind-story (Arch.),
           below the clerestory   blesti to become dark, 
Lettish blendu I do not see clearly,    O 

3.
the earth cracks open and fires burn in tunnels. 
Coal waste stands 500 feet tall: black
sandstorms blow into Shanxi.
            even during the day we drive with lights on.”
 
Husband 600 feet underground. Digging out
 
the stereo, refrigerator, television, electric fan, phone, light bulbs.
 
Ms. Cao decorates the family                with Chinese film stars           
                      and three-inch heels
 
The yellow loess rich                          
            but eroding the cradle                          
this, of
Nine-Heaven Palace 
Midair Temple 
Sacred Mountain
            Flying Stones
 
Scripture
suspended in shadow,
            as light splays
between letters 
             scripturient  of late L.
                         desire                ,f.L.      bag for alms
 
—black tongue.