Against Fluency

Abstract

Against Fluency Jianna Jihyun Park (bio) some fish do not have eyes.to sustain, they must eat everything. like water, a body of language is in constant flux.some of it stains.some of it cuts your ancestor's hair.some of it makes home out of new dress shoes. all of it dreams of containment. this is written in a language you call this language.this language is not your language. this fluency is enunciation of capitalof what flows, and does not.superfluous holds the tongue like hostage.the body saturates with contradictions.dictions that counter.encounter.mass. [End Page 66] the tongue paralyzes, withdraws.from the vacuum comes out another tonguethat looks like the first one but not quite. dream dimming voice lavender bloodoceanic ringing in your ear when you came homeyour clothes sniffed saline wind and turned stiff. mother doesn't recognize your tonguestopping short stumblingleaping over what remains unearthed, unearthable. this language is criminal.this language you bring hometuck into your cradlehum mermaid lullabiesthumbs wiping wet.your smiles are hiding teeth. when one language does not allow hold.does not allow utterance.the unattainability of this language becomes a form, a refuge.not all telling tells; the form insulates. [End Page 67] the nanny at your friend's house had a white smile.when you walked past the room one morningyou saw her staring into the nothingas if a country gone ghost.the baby played with letters on the floor, sucking on a pacifier. r = foreign sovereign slippery worthy (not quite love) roundabout cornering deviation split hair father wears a suit, ties r around his dry tongue. the woman enunciated "independence day"with all her chinas if her own.savor is not savior. this foreignness is intrinsic.to the man sitting next to you, you askwhose memory did you leave behind.he opens his mouth. stained teeth fall onto your palm.you bite your lip. [End Page 68] e is eruptiveergothis language. woori, naralike water in your closing handsthis language combs through, slips between the i's.our home becomes your own to remember. moment of enunciation—out the cage, fly fish. [End Page 69] Jianna Jihyun Park Hannah Sanghee Park is the author of The Same-Different, the 2014 winner of the Academy of American Poets Walt Whitman Award. "Plague" was originally written in 2016. Copyright © 2020 Pleiades and Pleiades Press