Two Poems

Aya Satoh

 

THERE IS NO MOTHER TONGUE ONLY A POWER TAKEOVER
after Don Mee Choi
The poet said: I speak as a radical tongue
The poet said: This English is not mine
The poet said: My tongue is a site of colonization
The poet said: I will never write of Montana wildflowers again
The poet said: The colon in my backpack is not rotting and refuses to comply
The poet said: I am tired of my own trauma
The poet said: My face came strangling down
The poet said: I have reshaped my English into black tourmaline
The poet said: This body is an expelled and historical zone
The poet said:
The poet said: My body is an expelled and historical zone and you cannot enter
The poet said: My tongue will not serve power
The poet said: Hit me while you fuck me
The poet said: This does not mean you have occupied my body
The poet said: I speak as not to atrophy
The poet said: There is no mother tongue

 

ピリ辛/PIRIKARA/PRICKLYHOT
The Portuguese
brought chili to 舞茸、お米、味噌
red fucked しる into spice

reconfigure

what is manly
Arnold Schwarzenegger eats spicy ramen glistening dirt smeared
styrofoam Nissin cup       crushed
in his hand
Arnold would not even register
the heat in 牛丼 or 七味
but we learned from America that
real men eat hot.
real men eat beef.

We always liked it mild
reaching for the liveness in a single piece of fish
beer like a raft of cotton
egg soft cooked in a hot spring
大根with the teeth soaked out
the ラー油 bubbled red oils we had never seen
swindling our men with the fantasy of heat