Mochun Li

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A Fish & Chips Therapy

I need a fish & chips therapist
All they need to do is
nod & distribute that goddamn fragrance

                                                                              (I won’t tell I’m a pescatarian,
                                                                       So I do have an appetite for them,
                                                                                                  if that’s ethical)
& say: what
has been done, is not your fault.
Whether the sick dog, or that divorce
Polluting factories & drained reservoirs
Leave alone the happening wars.

& it is ok not to be loved by your mother
for she’s also unwanted & hurt,
It is an inheritable trauma
called East Asian Family Syndrome.

But the feeling of ceiling
on my face hangs still
They see through it & treat me a guided imagery
I imagine them as my mom
who’ll hug me when I cry
feed me with her spoon
kiss me, while I vomit my guts out

we really are fish in water
Until nearby villagers come over, electrofishing
& I see myself becoming fish & chips &
men in suits eat me commenting: disgusting.

I open my eyes & the fish & chips therapist says:
you’ve found the truth of life.
Now leave. You must leave this virtuality.

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Amniotic Theatre

They say my eyes resemble glass beads
It’s because I no longer cry
Why can’t pupils be counted as a reservoir?
When I hold back my tears, that tranquil grows clearer still
Like a city built upon water
Watching the closest rival win a decisive battle
The dam – a city’s tear duct – was confiscated
The monarch who was just a stranger yesterday
Moved into the castle

Best if there were no battles at all –
People could cool off in three-metre high sewers
Praising the nymphaeum
When ceremonies were held
So I didn’t need to breed animals within my pupils
To feed them enough water
Migrating from this grave to that lot

The tiger wasn’t dead, but shrouded
When they nailed my father into the anointed coffin

I started to believe
That there was a mourning hall behind every door
Master ensuite, fetal ultrasound room, crematorium –
Always a big frail loom waiting
For memories to be shredded

When I clasp my child’s hand –
Once woven from vermilion muscle fibres
I feel as though I’m stealing my mother’s craft of weaving
The supposed unknitable

For her, it was the value that seemed undeniable
A man ten years older traded marriage with her
The dowry was the pension with a job
So she gave him back a child

For me, it was endometrioma
Until I filled my womb with an embryo, a colossal cyst
A decade of recurrence ended in ten months

The art of knitting wasn’t necessarily noble
Because the craftswoman could be in total indifference
Toward her piece

Or maybe I’m a defective item

Though my strands of hair too can mimic shapes behind the light:
A Lazarus when joyful
A Medusa when furious
Chang’e with loyalty, when ocean drenched by moon
All the household names
I alone am the shadow puppet show
Am the female heir to Sichuan opera

Now no one watches, since my father is gone
The new man will see me through inscriptions on a lawn

Maybe next time, we will not meet again
We will not spend life weaving, seizing the unwanted
But this time, I want
To hear my mother’s soft murmurs. Hear my father watering orchids
No more fish entrails buried in the soil
My hands and nostrils clean
Water utters, trickling back to my pupils.

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Body Politics

an eyelash was tired
of being part of me
so it committed suicide
a slight spasm in the eyelid
or maybe it was just
an anthropomorphic illusion

even if all the lashes committed mass suicide
it wouldn’t matter much
except for some nudity in the eyelid

Yes, the lightness
makes me think of my own death

I think of my body shrinking in the fall
shrinking
into a black, fetal eyelash
I leave my mechanism
knowing It will most likely be unhurt
like a dad, once fertile in his youth
who gave birth to many, many of me
and whichever one of me leaves
He wouldn’t be unhappy.

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X

Standing under the Colossus

My skin burns like a cloud
Eyes, need to take
Poppy.

You chained a woman up as a dog (less than a dog and less than your daughter)
Stripped her womb
eight children, vampires who do not fear the light.
You, her necklace of teeth on your forehead
laughing with the wind. Day after day
behind the line of people waiting for swabs to ejaculate their nostrils
War is everywhere, light and airy
like a virus spreading.
The eclipse is due
to your raised hand

“And so there was light.”
They said.

(I ache
everywhere.)

And those who are bloodied or have only their skulls left
wǒ, wǒ, wǒ
worn out. Maybe
I should have trusted you
For the sake of what has happened
To continue
to write in this mother tongue so
I turn myself into an ant
Put on the clothes of a woman
Scarify the skin of tattoos
Throw the dog’s corpse into the bin
Eleven years of dogs
staring at me with the eyes of a black cat.

“That’s our good citizen.”
They said.

So I lie under the Colossus
Like a scarlet flag shrouding
the ravaged nude.
It doesn’t matter
In this kingdom the body
is just a symbol of production.
I praise you and finally feel that I am so beautiful
Endlessly, like

a dynasty
propaganda
Or a person with x
written all over them.

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Mother

Mother it is not that I don’t oh please I don’t I don’t want to use the word that has been
overused

Abused

Like             a pet in suits
I think that’s how you look at me
Kneeling down, head on ground, hands presenting the silver handle of the chain you tied around my neck—an invisible choker
Which is an emblem of slavery, if you want to know.
Whenever you call my name in that tone.

I always feel that I live in some kind of lie
Now twenty more years have passed, I still do
Life to me is a transparent black veil covering statues
Can we both agree that Pietà is ultimately vile
for its reverence for death?
Because the holy duo seem clam and almost delighted, as if perishing is
A sprawl into infinite unconsciousness
And I’m sure the unbiblical cord constructs every angel’s halo

When they fly and fling flu at mortals, the aphorism is bellowed:
Everyone needs, needs a mother
And the circles over their skulls
Are like a colossal womb
That makes me puke

Mother,
Blood hails to me, to you
Now twenty more years have passed
I still have your name etched on my backbone
I’m being laughed at, when I’m nude

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Banner Art:
Do-Ho Suh, Karma, 2011 — Photo by Joe Pilié, Unsplash, 2020