i.
Our first time downtown, we were not two weeks off the plane
and thinner, cleaner, too young for this mess he diagnosed
and touched my arm unasked so now let's go
here I am with my expat tricks,
I am nails and hips and collarbones
in neon, in kanji,
with a taste in my hair and gin in my shoes
needing week after week to go where everyone goes.
ii.
With garblemouth I try to explain.
With a mouthful of sand I turn to this boy,
with a mouth tuna-swollen, beer-mucked
I try to explain
but we're on the long trek down to the next place
With a chapped small mouth
With a mouth like With a mouth like
With a mouth fish-hooked
Here he says
and we are this gaggle on a street of katakana
and plum-eyed girls, squeaky boys,
girls in pikachu furs who cannot
believe their luck and we float
towards them, such exotic balloons wait
stop a bathroom,
my purpling mouth,
watch me step out
into a smoke-shack,
bump against bodies that spike
and click and crack till the right song flicks
and you come to me, talk to me, hear me, adore me,
recoil when I mark you with lip blood,
salt.
iii.
Dragon, you found us on the twentieth floor and we think we have nothing to do with you who found us soaked dragon juices dragon stomachs you pull her by her snapped tooth onto the table and say dance dance you the syrupy lizard of grammar and error she saw you in the airport in the Tokyo hotel coathangers trembling she is ripped roots she is not quite she can't remember how this make her feel like how does it go she can't help it dragon is she blending in okay has she found the new culture is it in this tight dripping booth and is she loving it enough is she still a good whipplegirl or is that just you take your time with us lick the spilt drink from our necks pluck our accents away we all talk
like this like this there are so many things we want but not this you take your time I look up, try to reach for a window
iv.
if we wait an hr the subway'll creep back to life
but ASAHI KIRIN NIKKA
already look sick,
their lights blink, judder
so hunger
leads to this plasticky bread,
pink meat and no wait what even is this
what is this illiterate and raw-tongued,
in a ketchup-coloured fast food pitstop
there for women to slump
over tables and sleep
till it's done
or rub sauce in their eye,
or simply
sit and cry and text
and you and I are not friends yet,
we just washed up on the shore
at the same time roughly
now let me
curl up
metallic and cold
my hands lemon-sticky my lips
greased shut with pork
v.
Got to get on it got to shake jetlag
What time is it? What time should I be?
Fruitpeel and fridgewhir and neighbourclunk only –
Just perched on this random bit of the earth
Come to me come now
I'm chopped up thick I live like
raw squid expectant
Annie Katchinska was born in Moscow and grew up in London. Her Faber New Poets pamphlet was published in 2010 and her poems have been included in various anthologies. She is now back in the UK after two years spent living and working in Sapporo, Japan.