Rap Song- Shows for Elders

/ Hannah Jang

Poetry2 min reading time

No. 9

Act I.
On my birthday,
Red doctors logged onto interface
and checked off cut
of my umbilical cord.
Meaty one,
they wrote,
long like pig’s bloody intestine
they didn’t know, my dad had for dinner.
They left Umma’s tongue out
and hanging
like my dad’s soju belly
after intestine dinner.
Her tongue licked my belly,
clean,
like a fat pig
hosing off Red mud.
Alone Umma missed a couple spots,
doctors added to note
‘BLOOD-MUD
PHENOMENON’
They let me go
a little Red
still,
and with my mother’s tongue.
Act II.
The tongue a witness,
unprotected,
whimpered vocal stims “yo,” “yo,”
on mud of any soil.
Red schoolkids didn’t want to play with
a muddied Red tongue
stuck to
a muddied yellow schoolkid.
At recess,
I played alone
with my umma tongue
to lick myself clean.
“Yo-yo” I named it
when my Red teacher asked
me what I played
during recess.
I wanted to ask Miss Red
what she played during recess
but alone, got shy,
and pressed yellow hearing on door instead:
Oma…	        [words      

in Miss Red’s
slick

German thickness] …”

‘CALL MOTHER?’
I wondered
in pencil
who was calling Miss Red.
Act III.
Oma said
there are times N’ there are places
with yellow elders
I’m free to spin my yo-yo bases.
I thought me adult enough
to invite wrinkled Grandma
to school
to watch my whip-out show.
Miss Red and I rip ticket
paper to Grandma,
like persimmon, parch dry,
thawing hard in a yellow-Red freezer.
“Ann yeong hase————————
YO!”
goes my yo
on its first
whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
The yo retracts, whips me
wide
across the navel, ‘NEOSPORIN’
Miss Red notes, pick up Redburn wax.
Persimmons don’t like one-
hit wonders and cheap sellout shows,
so I watch them
pack up their tongues and purses.
Miss Red excuses me,
instructs my tongue
to go find its mother
“Oma?”
whir.
No catch?
No release.
Alone, I exit a Red-hot fraud.
Act IV.
The dinner table is wet
and coated slick
with yellow-Red discomfort, Neosporin,
and an overturned pig.
The only tongues sliding in
N’ out of dinner and
conversation
are in my mom and my dad.
Extra hungry is me
for intestine
or tongue,
this night the pig gutted of both.
I want to ask Oma
please plate me pig,
but my tongue is twitching
and I feel like tonight’s pork.
I’m Red
with hanger, but I remember
Miss Red
so I call for my mother:     	        “O     	    m 	   a !”

Three letters jerk,
like tonight’s pork,
for slaughter,
against the dry roof of my mouth.
In Red-hot parchness
I remember the wrinkly persimmons,
and I remember Miss Red
is German with no umma tongue.

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