m 

translated by PLS

m is a comb, the McDonald’s 

at Vienna station, the letter you draw 

on the steamed up window at night. you don’t know it reads as first tone

in pinyin: the chewing sound as you eat a hamburger while walking

the centre of the mist that can’t be combed clear, the silhouette

is working hard to press out a dark shape

i am holding the sound in my chest

the combing is done by the M shaped European architecture

two embarrassed men, at the sides of a firm base

walk along the light tunnel dug out by the mist

colluding in a maze of cunning

each abandoning the unconnectable

the distant and dark sides and the background

so you never know

in pinyin m is merely

an initial consonant that can’t be capitalised

the tenderness on the lips of a baby when they suck

the poet of the east

engrave the sound in the transparent abdomen of a mother