What lies behind disparity?
I speak a language and it is not mine and I can’t be silent
I don’t mind that I speak your language and I am silenced speaking mine
I am not while I speak your language and silently I speak my mind
I don’t speak your language as it is not mine and I am silent
I can’t be silent while I speak your language even though it is land-mined
the silence is not mine while I speak my language mixed with your language
I can’t just be and I speak this and not some language of yore
I can’t speak for you in my language and your silence is a mine
Your language speaks to me and I can’t be and I am not mine
It is not mined and I can’t be silent and I speak my mind
I can’t speak through the mined silence and you’re a language that isn’t mine
your language fills the silence and I can’t speak and this is not mine
I speak a language and it is not silence and your language isn’t mine
My mind breaks in the silence of language and you start to speak mine
Poise
Surgery
with a few biographical details on a yellow index card:
how long have you been writing, what your ambitions are
and why do you live so close to the mine.
Alone in theatre your surgeon dissects, folds back spotted
epidermis, the flap of subcutaneous fat, reaches impacted
seam. He splatters his green gown like a Pollock, shifting
carbon and hearing the molecules sing. Burrowing bone-
down, there’s a mole of atoms. Today you’re green sticks
sprouting on the slagheap. The afternoon sun tenderly
strokes the surgeon’s cap and you both wait.
L Kiew is a London-based poet of chinese-malaysian heritage. She works as a charity sector leader and accountant. She holds a MSc in Creative Writing and Literary Studies from Edinburgh University. Her debut pamphlet The Unquiet was published by Offord Road Books in 2019. She was a 2019/2020 London Library Emerging Writer and is currently completing her debut collection. Twitter: @l_kiew Instagram: @l.kiew website www.lhhkiew.co.uk.
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