JIAQIAO LIU
nonconsensual translation in the extended family WeChat
dad started it
bragged in the chat, as dads do:
look at my [child] who is a poet on the internet!
drops a link
his siblings can’t read
and why, yes, [他] got those artistic genes
from him and no one else, and no
other genes, definitely not, what else
could there be?
In a bouquet of cousins
as scattered and unmarried as this
it is statistically unlikely I am alone.
a 诗人
is a keeper of the temple
of words, one who prays
thrice a day, sweeps and smooths
the throat’s alcoves, holds out
the tiniest sweetest mandarins
for strangers wandering in, then
retires to the inner sanctum
to refresh their faith
in solo-sex, in DIY
hormones, platonic soulmates,
open-source body hacking,
in unintelligibility
to unkind eyes. Who knows
who churned my old words
through their clever mind
until, family-friendly, they fell
from their clever fingers
onto the screens of aunts, uncles,
who knows? Whether it was
a cousin’s friend’s brother
an uncle’s colleague’s daughter
an auntie’s friend of a friend
not a friend, I thought,
of my little transqueer heart
whoever it was. Characters
in a green box, stick-thin,
cryptic.
In my panic, I forgot
the cheap Amazon binder I saw
hanging on yéye’s balcony
though who knows if that cousin
checked the chat. I uninstalled WeChat
because it stopped responding when denied
location permissions, and because I knew
the silent state
we would return to
weeks later, mum updates me: another cousin
flies to America to finish her Masters
and it’s uncles turn in the chat.