Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Tuesday poem #390 : Khashayar Mohammadi : langue-locked


   lang-locked              far from the tongue-tip
you are now where language no longer serves you
you have passed the threshold of self-serving continuity
when you sleep on your tongue                                  you wake
thorn-scraped throat                your own body                        in pursuit 
of inhalation               the body can only express                  by expanding
   we are past signifier and signified now                   turtles all the way-downing
      the pursuit of gender                                 before finding an answer
            to words themselves.              the desire to know
                         what is a (wo)man / before knowing
                                    what is a what
                                                what
                                                     is
                                                     an
                                                       is



Khashayar Mohammadi is a Queer, Iranian-born, Toronto-based writer and translator. He is the author of chapbooks Solitude is an Acrobatic act with above/ground press and Dear Kestrel with knife | fork | book. His debut poetry collection Me, You, Then Snow is forthcoming with Gordon Hill Press.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

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