by Chris Tse

Re-learning a language with a rock
……………in my mouth—the slow back

and forth as I think in different
……..lives—translation being a taste

of the oldest past, further back than
….what the first word can contain

insomuch as any singular, abandoned
………definition is a spark that makes it stick.

When, then? In a way it’s the rote that
…….prevails, syllables in mutual repetition,

building blocks compressed into presence.
…..Then, when a manner of speaking is the

fortuitous hook charged with getting me
…….across the line, repeatedly, volley at

the net, I still find myself mumbling
…………..in English as I 拜山 at

my grandparents’ graves with well wishes
……………..and requests for guidance.

……………………..One bow.
……………………..Two bows.
……………………..Three bows.

I only make do with patterns, the far
……………reach and the distant hand closed

around what I can’t find the words for—
……far, closed, distant, shut—and so on

until I give up trying or someone stops listening
……and we go back to watching the news.

Four hours ahead in Aotearoa, I watch
…… the past and the future unravel on television.

~

In Hong Kong the protests are the crack of a
….thousand umbrellas calling forth their own storm

and it’s clear the language of anger and revolt
……is the same wherever there is something

to protect. The protestors’ signs make it clear:
…Use Cantonese in Hong Kong.

My other tongue—the one used for ordering
…..蝦餃 and asking about the weather—

my other tongue has a radical power!? In English,
…..my name rhymes with peace, but in Chinese

it gives thanks. A revolution is the opposite of
……peace and thanks—it’s our pleasantries set alight.

The radical began with radicalis, radix—
……the roots, the basics. That our modern

uprisings are rooted in supposedly
……….dead languages cannot be ignored by

lawmakers with gangs on speed dial or
…..government officials who refuse to listen.

I hear every word in the world shift and so
……………………..I trade meaning for intent

wearing down the rock in my mouth
………….coating each word with its hardness

until there is no longer a switch—just one swift
……movement, a brick cast in the middle of a protest.

I feel everything colliding 9,424km away in
…..Wellington, where the storm can’t take my tongue.

Chris Tse is a writer from Wellington, New Zealand. He is the author of two collections of poetry published by Auckland University Press, How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes (winner of Best First Book of Poetry at the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards) and HE’S SO MASC. His poetry has previously published in Cha, Poetry, Atlanta Review, and Peril Magazine. He is currently co-editing an anthology of LGBTQIA+ New Zealand writers, due to be published in 2021. Visit his website for more information.