Splits and rasps
by L Kiew
Splits. Stilted. Silted. Salah tongue unrooted.
Re-rooting in cracked clay. Saliva fertile.
My tongue tills the earth, works. Seeds form.
Syllables tilted. Mana boleh? Bhǫ diὁt?
Touching tongues. Entwined vines. Wine
Tasting. Savoured saliva. Sa-lah. Recollect
idiolect. Sio:siot. Rasa saying. Slang.
Jàigiặng. Branching tongues routing.
Culvert. Tongue trying, overspills. Damn
my teeth. Tongue held back. Tongue released
a crop. Spitting out. Being spat out.
Being spat on. Lips missed, spot on.
–
The title of this poem alludes to "Start by noticing the rasps and splits in language" - Caroline Bergvall, "A Cat in the Throat: On bilingual occupants"A Chinese-Malaysian living in London, L Kiew earns her living as an accountant. She holds a MSc in Creative Writing and Literary Studies from Edinburgh University. In 2017 she took part in the Poetry School/London Parks and Gardens Trusts Mixed Borders Poets Residency Scheme and the Toast Poetry mentoring programme. She was shortlisted for 2017 Primers mentoring and publication scheme. Her poems have been published in Brittle Star, Butcher’s Dog, Ink Sweat and Tears, Lighthouse, Magma, Obsessed with Pipework, Tears in the Fence, The Scores, The North and Wasifiri among other magazines and websites. Her debut pamphlet The Unquiet came out with Offord Road Books in 2019. She was longlisted in the 2019 National Poetry Competition. She was a 2019/2020 London Library Emerging Writer.