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Serial Poem: Meimei photo

1

[meimei’s a meatness sis slug of blood boat the body tiger the teeth selfie tongue selfie chintilt selfie lilt her lily pucker her puss pin her skin back tap her mouth flap saps herself a shelf of oak to trophy her bones a blown his load bloat her up sup from her belly looms a harvest moon carves its boon goon the girl gook the girl grin her blood bask the borrowed blade her bodied bate the born whore the boy bore bitter boar tuskgutted her good gust good girl pouches her eyes doesn’t care about size lies still til til til call her a fire drill ashes bread her lung you bred her young meimei’s a rented dent knuckled gents sis is all background sound a pound of crown a browned hound how her hunger now earthbound like lightning looking for a body thru which to ground]

2

[come witness a live birth Meimei is not sliding out like the sword from the stone Meimei is sliding out like a coin the machine won’t take Meimei clasping her scream to this air Meimei doesn’t care who can hear her moans through the wall Meimei treads her mattress like the deep end surfaces in China where her grandmother boils red tea and pulps a chicken and stuffs a rabbit head with mint and gives her acupuncture in the ass and she is supposed to heal but fuckthat healing is a concept invented by white people and China invented everything else like gunpowder bells wrapping paper toilet paper tofu soccer dominoes pottery wheat gluten hand grenade]

3

[when Meimei was born the doctor weighed her diapered her drew her a chalk outline don’t worry, she’ll grow into itMany of us were born with bodies But not all of us are allowed to keep them Fifteen and she shouldn’t be but she’s thinking about the Chinese man who sold a kidney to buy his son an iPhone His photo in the newspaper The scar still yeasty The left-side hole they stuffed with feathers Where wings peep If he had them Later they named him a prophet Everything comes at a profit For example Meimei sells blue facepowder to all the newborns who just wanna be left for dead Then they all crawl away to an island where they can be naked and blue forever Meimei wants to go too but she has to complete her engineering degree Meimei learns to keep house She bakes the forks into the pie and raises all her dogs to bite She stops brushing her teeth Mouthsmoke twanging Breathlava rolling over the nation]

4

[Two things are thrown at her: a Victoria’s Secret limited edition Swarovski bra-AND-panties set and her father’s shrunken head on a stick Atayal-style This is a test her mother says And boils another head Meimei chooses to catch her father It’s the right choice She advances three spaces Passes Genocide and collects 200 Passes Orientalist Avenue Meimei comes from a long line of savage women who didn’t have to wear bras until the Dutch made them with their guns and delicious golden puffy pastries Meimei can eat a whole box by herself Just watch Meimei nibbles the continent Chips her tooth on a bit of leftover island Makes her mother pinch off Europe Meimei hates eating the crusts]

5

[meimei sends an email to her future bosses: 
SORRY I DON’T HAVE BROKEN ENGLISH BUT I AM A BROKEN PERSON HAHA 
no reply]

6

[Meimei takes a poetry class Let yourself be a channel, not a window says the teacher Meimei is embarrassed because she was born a window Later she grew some flesh behind it She sharpies in the glass over her belly because she’s afraid her intestines make her look fat Meimei starts every poem with a boat leaving her body The teacher tells her she has a solid grasp of the figurative but this is not a metaphor The boat is always empty Until the day her grandmother dies in another country Now the boat is hived with bees Constant bees Meimei keeps her mouth closed but everyone in class can still hear them They stare into the sound of her body They try to talk louder but it doesn’t work Meimei is so embarrassed she swarms out the window The teacher never learned her name]

7

[Meimei folds this page into a fist]

 

image: Aaron Burch


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