镜

She asks what fucking sounds like
in Chinese and I choose
my words carefully, leave out the
ones I gouged from the mouths
of men, the sounds I learnt taming
the tongue, tuning my throat
to his want. How I sunk my teeth into
this language and woke with its shirt
balled up in my mouth. How I made a ritual
of turning every mirror face-down,
refusing to see the noises crawl
out of me. But now, only because
she is asking, but also because she has sworn
off futures and I am desperate
to prolong this new, loud
softness and the only thing
I still worship in this
country is its centuries of singing
wives, I tell her
about the sound mirrors
make when polished down
to the bone. I leave one
on the edge to watch her eyes
meet mine, our reflections
taunting the moon. Come
morning, it’s shattered
by the bed, a million
small suns. I reach wrist-deep
into the shards. I finger
for a future, begging it to come.

* In ancient China, 磨镜, “polishing mirrors,” was a euphemism for lesbian sex.

Tiffany Wu is from Shanghai and Singapore. Her poetry has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Sine Theta Magazine, The Offing, Pigeon Pages, and elsewhere. A recent graduate of Williams College, she currently studies History of Art at Cambridge.