from The Academics
I suspect it’s a possum messing up with your womb, their littered intestines mocking pains
for scientific purposes I screen its squeezing mouth, a farmland of reelberries sprouting stench
‘I am to give you some benefit of doubt,’ the hoarseness of my affectionate hand! harvesting
the richest lover from that stingy hole of your stomach’s river! now you are resting for reasons
unknown, murmuring undeserved insults against the concept of advice, ‘a dog is to rescue a
ticking monkey, but that monkey is jumpy! that money he’s grasping with slender fingers of filth!’
well you can always count on animal pixels, warms my digestive system to tell you this
when it is our war I shall speculate further on the compromised role of explosive diarrhea, now
please walk with me to the parking lot of potentially nothing, whipping our beasts’ bruised feet
the possum suspects I am pregnant in its womb, with plain agrarian accuracy I lie beside you
‘O what a beautiful leech of assholes,’ you spread open once, ‘is this how knowledgeable I am?’
a psychologist friend who broke
several ethical codes to allow me
sit in his office listening to clients
cry to him once said he had beef
with ‘not PhD but MDs’ whose offices
were in the new skyscraper
at the center of downtown
when I first met my friend he spent
three hours explaining to me his totality
theory for ‘not human beings but a new
futuristic cyborg’ I visited him
again three years later nothing
has changed except he now gained
new passion for the tech industry because
‘so many Chinese people are
bosses’ I wonder if his association
with power and us being Chinese
had to do with a sense of
impending doom but well
I stopped talking to him for I
have changed my research topic
chair promises our knees ruin what’s down
done throwing dice chances slim the linguistic
relentless lobbying cannibalism to be arranged I
shall be waggling the dog’s illness tans the dog
tail claiming twins are regime of sign change
when I was not writing which was
most of the time I was walking
around making friends
I went to a casino hearing where
some head of a hospital
spoke to the mic about health
benefits of a casino as large
as the entire downtown
‘construction jobs bring
healthcare and healthcare
brings health’ she soon became
the deputy mayor & I
was sitting on the floor outside
watching them shake hands thinking
if there were still things undiscovered
or underarticulated about this
there murmurs were mumbling
not a single round stone kidney
let lone a lamp at noon blinking
pair of references walking to foil
to foil two veracious balls dilly dally
bar chart a doll an uncle vends you
an uncle vends you land ugh
ouching your way out alone handsome?
my friend who sells books on the streets
(his selection ranges from
cancer treatment to the world map
of psychopaths) once whispered
to me his suspicion of the only
Chinese bookstore on the tail end
of Main Street that the owner of this
impossibly resilient book business
must have secret & lucrative
exchanges behind closed
doors ‘or else who could have
paid for that rent?’
I met him at a tenant meeting
that I was too nosy to miss
the advice he gave me
was that I should study Chinese
immigrants’ sexual partnership including
his downstairs neighbor who just
found a boyfriend 30 years older
I said I would possibly consider
this proposal and he left me with
three books that I insisted
I didn’t want:
‘how to manage midlife health
crisis’ ‘the world of wild
cougars’ & ‘metaphysics of moon’
I did visit the owner of the bookstore
who told me neither socialism nor
capitalism has solved the issue of
human kind his suggestion was
for me to get a green card as soon
as possible since I was still
talented like his poet friend who got
translated by a big press & immediately
became an American
insert fluent into a dam’s feather
a pup’s linger
causes fissures of wine’s surface
leather
how how
the reign rains non-stop for a damned
chicken wing
jaywalking to a crab’s crib happy
o’clock
the last friend I want to tell you
about is a home care worker
she asked me about hope
in two occasions one was
in a meeting about her stolen
wages after ten years of
protests the other was after
the mega casino got approved
“is it still hopeful” she asked
she told me I was able to be
a good speaker at rallies
because I was an academic
that if her mom granted her
a chance to go to school
she would end up being
as good as me
in the no casino townhall she took
her time as always wandering
what was required of her
to say & what was lived
for so long that her histories
were circular in accusations
‘all the men in my family gamble’
her lips were very thin & tight
‘all the men in my family lost
all we had’
the next week I
was on the stage doing
what I was good at in
English & she was in the picket
line doing what she had been
doing for years
our eyes met during Chinese
chants & a question wasn’t
there
and won’t be
for the time being
how come a pigsty is the pressing issue of your referendum is beyond me
not everyone is a cyborg modeled after my uncle sitting on a crooked chair in the village
being gifted three million bored hummingbirds is necessary for manipulation
if friend A is an asshole how do I stand by my innocence sitting in friend B’s seat
I met my partner on the weather forecast app because we both believe snow is conspiracy
the other day a purple dog told me I was colorblind but a dog should not be able to speak
the fact that I met my partner on the weather forecast app should persuade you snow is a conspiracy
the world is full of contradictions but I remain steadfastly coherent in times of confusion
here is some Japanese tofu which is completely tangible and realistic
ever since my ex died in Chicago I routinely check his instagram for new information
I love information that’s why I am being tasked to muddle its simplicity professionally
it is completely acceptable that I should be unemployed and deported once I finish this big thing
if you texted me and I never texted back it’s because I felt weird about you not because I was busy with this big thing
currently I’m instructing my uncle to stand up from the crooked chair I envision
his body emits geopolitical insights as I increase the stakes of lying
‘it all depends’ I sculpt this chair deep inside of him
there has never been a language appropriate for this foolish truth between you and me
3am appeared to be the right time doubting
the omnipotence of sleep so I chose to pay
attention to the blue tarp’s late blueness.
there were women sleeping under the steady
hushes outside the spring-infested city hall
whose streets instructed our living orderly.
you can sit down anywhere in the world if you
have a chair. we were sitting down at this
important street corner when a man walked by
starting to yell. ‘who could have worked for how
long you claimed they have worked & not already
have died in the emergency room somewhere.’
he was upset we were sitting down here foreign
-ly. he speculated abt the intention of foreignness.
this city has the biggest manhole known to me,
many tiny hands tickling its possibilities. legend
has it our new mayor sleeps deep down the
snake pit, his legs all tangled up to defend our
sewage. there’s a chance he cries himself to sleep
every night. some like to echo the whimpering.
my mom read a novel during her night shifts
about birds & romance. it was 30 years ago
when the nascency of day was deep in the
belly of my current clock. i grew to be familiar
with her sleeping breaths & teeth’ shuttering
clench. she mistook her own sounds for spa-
rrows, lay awake to imaginary creatures threat
ening our organs’ symphony with rests.
yesterday a spy was revealed after her oldness
gave out enmity. under the urge of confusion I
went to see the puppet. did you see how the
puppet was free the spy-busters whispered to me.
did you see the metal pretending hands? little
wandering time, tripping aunties with hours errand?
the student sits on the seven train, thinking of numbers.
‘I am the epitome of counting,’ she says out loud, not sure if it’s the right address.
‘the world is sorting me out,’ as places fall.
as places fall, the student winds a man’s spit on the night curls
the drowning of a ride’s sudden split, green she sees
light’s vein passing quick
light’s vein passing, wishes make her water known
the student leans in, urinates wickedly
at a sculpture in the middle of everything
at a sculpture in the middle of everything
the student coins
flatters, gleans me
cleans floral means —-
**
YUYI CHEN is from Sichuan, China. Erotic Continent is their first book, out now from Discount Guillotine. The Academics is now available from Blue Bag Press. Their work can be found in Chicago Review, Cleveland Review of Books, Common Place Poetics, and others. They go by Echo.
