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Biography for Amphibians
by John YauHarnessed moon enchanting nostalgic armadilloes
Clipped tongue erased ornaments flooded sky
Immobile rhizomes sheathed in herbaceous ferment
I am a prisoner of a table of contents never released
The sky is a tin cup sending signals to its children
A cellophane candle sifting through stammering husks
The real voltage is still hiding behind the illustrator’s eyes
According to the uniformed woman at the passport bureau
I was probably born yesterday
shortly after a warthog managed to drop me
beneath the effigy of a photograph
I am sitting on a book of codices and partly drawn curtains
Most of my limbs have had to be recalibrated
I was invented in the mouth of a receding phantom
which is why my hair is the color of an extinguished wish
According to the alpine clock mounted on City Hall
that crayon dunce cap decorated with crepe paper bells
a secondary character is evincing sympathy
while I am trying to extract the logic of my name
from embers deposited in the fur of this festive prose
I am not sure when I lost my first plural
in the housing projects of the future perfect
or when I began looking up
the pastimes of my ancestors
Didn’t you threaten to name me
after the ditch beneath your windows
John Yau has two books forthcoming; Ing Grish from Saturnalia Books, with drawings by Tom Nozkowski; and Andalusia, with art work by Leiko Ikemura, from Weidle Verlag, Bonn, Germany.
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