Chinese
The first time I ate Chinese
She made me use chopsticks
The sticks hung like broken fingers
But she insisted I try
She had traveled to China
Slept in a tent on the steppe
Where little villagers
Marveled at red hair
All that I understand of China
A custom here, a forbidden temple
Spilled from her pink mouth
And crept inside of me
Now, I cook my own Chinese
In a tarnished wok on the stove
The smell lingers in the carpet
Of this dim apartment
And some nights, I hear through walls
Two making love
Their whispers and cries sound foreign to me
And could be Chinese
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Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on April 02, 2023
- 32 sec read
- 10 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXBX CXBX CXXD AXXX XXDA |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 544 |
Words | 108 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Translation
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- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
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- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
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"Chinese" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/68030/chinese>.
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