Ah ah-ing, I have never understood your languageI picked up a body with an emptied bellyWas that love? From the depths of the nest I took an eggStill 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 explainWas it an afternoon of fine rain? I was doing endless choresWhen I saw you rake the soil, while a flock of chicks beneath your wingsLooked around nervously, leapt, fought over something in your mouthI watched you nod in the rain, gaze at glistening beads shaken by small wingsWas that love? I watched chicks slowly change their colorBetween rain or shine, I learned more about shifts in tense and toneSaw a weary mother grow irritated, brandish the kitchen knifeSaw piping hot spam and egg noodles on the table for meSo I could face the afternoon’s tedious secondary school entrance examsAh ah-ing, were you looking for your eggs? Was I looking for mine?How to fill in the empty grids? I looked out the windowAt light wind and fine rain and saw you raking the wet mud, a deepAnd almost never-ending cavity, hiding your hopesAnd my hopes? I saw piping hot eggs descend from the skyI felt a lump in my throat, and could not write a single wordWas that love? On a rainy winter’s dayI watched you raise your throat, the feathers under your chin still intactAnd saw you pour bright red blood into a milk-white porcelain bowlWith no time to cry ah-ah, you already lay by the hot water basinYour stomach emptied, staring at your own scattered organsThen in the vast steam, you rose from a porcelain potBlurring the hand that lifted the lid, blurring the ever-increasing wrinklesIt rains and rains and I am still finishing the never-ending houseworkBetween rain or shine, I learn simpler ways to solve complex problemsWhen you are gloomy for no reason, I learn to watch quietly from the sideQuietly clean the nursing bottle, change diapers, shake a small rattleWhen you are angry for no reason, I learn to swallow my wordsClean up broken shards, squeeze you tightly from behind at key momentsLike a pair of silent heavy wings in a sky swirling with feathersWithout blood, without a struggle, without anyone losing their voiceIs that love? I bought a nine-inch wide steaming potWashed it thoroughly, then went to the store to buy a henOutside the bamboo cage, I saw that peculiar gazeNo tears, only that familiar, faintAh-ah. Then silence. I saw bloodFlow from a ditch. I saw a bellyEmptied out. Gaping like a mouthThat cannot say anything. I waved my handAnd refused the shimmering organs the shopkeeper held outThe rain keeps falling the steam keeps rising I pick up the body with[indent] the emptied bellyAh-ah, I almost hear an ah-ah from outside the windowI learn the water’s volume the onion’s temperament the size of the [indent] cooking flameThe steam we bring onto the table spirals precisely between rain and shineWhen the oily yellow surface reflects the condensation on my faceA kid sneezes who once again forgot to layer up?Mother’s phone calls are brief I hear through the receiver that old house’s [indent]lonelinessWill you be back for New Year’s for the Lantern Festival and what about [indent] 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 slaughterIs that love? I watch a thin fluid flow from your beak like tearsIs that the flue, I see an entire city of people with long facesBetween rain or shine, I learn to wear masks and hazmat suitsDeeply raking the mud, that never-ending workAh-ah, I hear again that voice stopping and startingMouths sealed in every stuffed black plastic bagIs that love, for the children we removed you from the cookbookIs that love, for our own sake we piled up your bodiesLike houses crowded together in the morning at night in a locked down cityI hear that voice that voice is at my feetNot understand it that language is buried like the days