Secret Directives

Li told me we should move to China
where we can finally live together

in happiness chow fun
limelit in the educational backdraft of

our dialectical tongues.
My slab to your tooth,

togetherness measured by the
proper position of the tongue.

Aping perfect pronunciation, I will carry us
on the whistle edge of my toe.

To forest to your ocean,
to scrim to your wax.

Even now, when you say you have a
"life problem" this only dials back

my red shoe to a kind of secret throb,
this unexplained you becomes the heel of my ear.

So I have bought you a dessert cake
to make indirection easier. A soft dent.

Chow fun, dear.
Chow, hundreds of deer.

A sugared hoof in your mouth.