Hard to Say
BY JANE WONG
[Can’t you] Listen: I am asking for a grammar
that allows me to use a cleaver large enough
to admire my face in [my pores, what a splendid home
for ants], allows me to slice open each verb
like a baby coconut, juice succulenting down my spindle
arms. [Won’t you] Give me: my mother
in past participle, lacquered peacock eyeshadow, shoulder
pad suited, married to the tallest stranger [my father,
always him/forgetting him]. With each love fevered failured, I
hurl myself towards her in full dress adjective: gorgeous,
glittery, greater than tests run by muck ruled men. [You/similarly]
Refuse: to sit in the hard to say, squirm off
in prepositional putty. [Please] Look: it’s hard to remember what verbs
led us irregular here: done, sung, written, put down, go, going,
gone. Complicated ever, clanging sternum plates, the breaking
after. [Now/no] Tell me: what grammar cut up, cooed, will make
this organ move?
