☀ Today's Poem: "Housework" Derek Chung

Ah ah-ing, I have never understood your language
I picked up a body with an emptied belly

Was that love? From the depths of the nest I took an egg
Still warm. Turning around, I saw you stick your head out from the firewood,
Ah ah-ing, like you wanted to tell me something you could never explain

Was it an afternoon of fine rain? I was doing endless chores
When I saw you rake the soil, while a flock of chicks beneath your wings
Looked around nervously, leapt, fought over something in your mouth
I watched you nod in the rain, gaze at glistening beads shaken by small wings

Was that love? I watched chicks slowly change their color
Between rain or shine, I learned more about shifts in tense and tone
Saw a weary mother grow irritated, brandish the kitchen knife
Saw piping hot spam and egg noodles on the table for me
So I could face the afternoon's tedious secondary school entrance exams

Ah ah-ing, were you looking for your eggs? Was I looking for mine?
How to fill in the empty grids? I looked out the window
At light wind and fine rain and saw you raking the wet mud, a deep
And almost never-ending cavity, hiding your hopes
And my hopes? I saw piping hot eggs descend from the sky
I felt a lump in my throat, and could not write a single word

Was that love? On a rainy winter's day
I watched you raise your throat, the feathers under your chin still intact
And saw you pour bright red blood into a milk-white porcelain bowl
With no time to cry ah-ah, you already lay by the hot water basin
Your stomach emptied, staring at your own scattered organs
Then in the vast steam, you rose from a porcelain pot
Blurring the hand that lifted the lid, blurring the ever-increasing wrinkles

It rains and rains and I am still finishing the never-ending housework
Between rain or shine, I learn simpler ways to solve complex problems
When you are gloomy for no reason, I learn to watch quietly from the side
Quietly clean the nursing bottle, change diapers, shake a small rattle
When you are angry for no reason, I learn to swallow my words
Clean up broken shards, squeeze you tightly from behind at key moments
Like a pair of silent heavy wings in a sky swirling with feathers
Without blood, without a struggle, without anyone losing their voice

Is that love? I bought a nine-inch wide steaming pot
Washed it thoroughly, then went to the store to buy a hen
Outside the bamboo cage, I saw that peculiar gaze
No tears, only that familiar, faint
Ah-ah. Then silence. I saw blood
Flow from a ditch. I saw a belly
Emptied out. Gaping like a mouth
That cannot say anything. I waved my hand
And refused the shimmering organs the shopkeeper held out

The rain keeps falling the steam keeps rising I pick up the body with
                                             the emptied belly
Ah-ah, I almost hear an ah-ah from outside the window
I learn the water's volume the onion's temperament the size of the
                                             cooking flame
The steam we bring onto the table spirals precisely between rain and shine
When the oily yellow surface reflects the condensation on my face
A kid sneezes who once again forgot to layer up?
Mother's phone calls are brief I hear through the receiver that old house's
                                             loneliness
Will you be back for New Year's for the Lantern Festival and what about
                                             Mid-Autumn?
The well water is clear the tea stove cracked and is it still last year's firewood?
The days are shriveled thin, perhaps it's time to celebrate and slaughter

Is that love? I watch a thin fluid flow from your beak like tears
Is that the flu, I see an entire city of people with long faces
Between rain or shine, I learn to wear masks and hazmat suits
Deeply raking the mud, that never-ending work
Ah-ah, I hear again that voice stopping and starting
Mouths sealed in every stuffed black plastic bag
Is that love, for the children we removed you from the cookbook
Is that love, for our own sake we piled up your bodies
Like houses crowded together in the morning at night in a locked down city
I hear that voice that voice is at my feet
Not understanding it that language is buried like the days