A Message About Food, Teeth And Poetry.... Poem by Reva Kern

It is still usual when I walk
To feel through the soles of my feet
The earth's core
Traveling up through my vertebrae
Reaching my head and shaking it -
Through this process, the earth
May send a short message by a twig
Giving me advance notice
Encouraging me that
if in the event tomorrow
Arrives without an accident,
I should go out and enjoy for once
Western style food and not be
Intimidated by the face of the
Merchant in the second market stall
Who tightly holds a beef heart
With a knife and fork-
Another one motions in the air
and the two circle me
speaking out four times
Assuring me that it is unlikely the
Tongue will knock against the teeth
As if a piece of beef is able to settle
A dispute of what?
What else is a problem?
Incapable of entering
Rice paddy fields in season quickly to harvest
but only because
Of being bashful
And in a bumper harvest I leave
Only I'm compelled every day
to tightly bind a bundle of millet
and put it in my mouth and chew -
And now I chew again -
It's important to make myself
Dislike speaking honestly
And to support this practice,
I look humbly at my teeth
Nibbling my fingernails to conceal
Arranging in neat order
6 individual woven bags
Stacked properly with
White gourds, sweet potato, eggplant, cowpea, lotus root
And compose a poem blending
Them together with a dead fish
And green onion -
With the activity finished,
I bare my teeth, grind them
Making a noise.