what’s in a mouth
my stomach, empty except for
duck tongues.
the off-brand Tupperware container, empty except for
duck tongues.
the pot that’s older than i am, empty except for
duck tongues.
the heads of the 20-something ducks whose tongues i’ve taken, full except for
their tongues.
i am the duck tongue queen of this Chinese-Canadian suburb,
and the ducks in the river behind my house fear me.
i eat duck tongues for breakfast.
i will drive 30 minutes to the Asian superstore and back for them.
these tongues, these tiny nubs of muscle,
marinated in the pepper juice of my mother’s top-secret recipe;
they freeze my mouth and set it on fire,
tongue on tongue on tongue on
tongue on tongue.
i could never tie a cherry stem into knots
but i can suck the meat off this spur of bone in two seconds.
we all find things we’re good at:
tying our laces, drawing tomatoes—
eating the parts of a duck you never even knew you could cook.
Other Works
2 Poems
by Mai Ivfjäll
... the bees are dying—can you feel it? ...
Cosmuseum
reviewed by Sean Sam
... When one of the cafeterias becomes inaccessible, the museum staff begin to starve. They turn to eating the exhibits....