EATING AN OYSTER



(translated by the author and Marilyn Chin)

How nice it is,
Pursing our mouthes,
Pursing our lips to the edge of a shell
To sip the slimy flesh of an oyster!
“The taste of copper”,said Hemingway,
But I would like to call it
The taste of lead.
Our souls may have such shapes,
If we have souls.
Gray,
Obscene,
Fishy and jelly−like,
Then ,maybe
When we squeeze a lemon over them,
They will contract,fizz fizz fizz.