Tattooed with Chinese Script

Tattooed with Chinese Script

I wake up every morning before the rest of the city

to open the birdcage so you’ll hear the bird sing.

Wake up broken, open the cage, gulp the tears,

blow what remains of my wings at dawn.

My eyelids are tattooed with Chinese script.

I put away my cross-eyed heritage,

my short path to erotic paintings,

my wet torso moaning with desire,

to call out you. You know my dead,

my gestures, my prayers.

You offer them food,

serve them my eyes that never sleeps,

have not lived here for a century.

You name the bird, guess if it is captive.