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Sport 40: 2012
In the Land of Deaf-Mutes
In the Land of Deaf-Mutes
In the beginning using language was
child’s play, an art of slips and promises
Not sentences alone could be true or false
From grammars we built small ships
and let them sail across the sky-sea
until the discord soaked through. They
didn’t help us sort the poisonous words
from the wholesome ones, nor to
ignite a poem without phosphorous and stone
Your description of utopia was a mistake
For you were only teaching us because the future
Was more frightening to you than the past
I would have choked on my own childhood
if I had trusted your lessons
Without rage they’re infertile lessons
I left the books behind, the asylum
of your truths. My toes are more likely to find
my mouth than your latex metaphors
page 233
The seam of dirt under my toenails
feeds my word fever more than the one under the
clean foreskin of fathers. My retching
is not just a gesture, not just a dance
It’s also a stigma in the land of my choice
I won’t get older, born old
Among the herds of deaf-mutes
I make up for my childhood