from Deaf Republic: 16
Yet I am. I exists. I has
a body,
When I see
my wife’s slender boyish legs
the roof
of my mouth goes dry.
She takes my toe
in her mouth.
Bites lightly.
How do we live on earth, Mosquito?
If I could hear
you what would you say?
Your answer, Mosquito!
Above all, beware
of sadness
on earth we can do
—can’t we?—
what we want.
Notes:
These poems are from the unfinished manuscript Deaf Republic. This story of a pregnant woman and her husband living during an epidemic of deafness and civil unrest was found beneath the floorboards in a house in Eastern Europe. Several versions of the manuscript exist.—IK
Source: Poetry (May 2009)