We’ve heard they make music

by tying tin pots to donkeys, yanking on the ropes

then beating them with wooden goads. We’ve heard

            their highest cultural achievement

is a poetry that never veers from the subject

of spitting in public places, that they torture 
            hermetic dreamers

and anyone who perceives The Great Ferry Boat

among the stellar immensities. Can it really be true

            they believe alliances

are jealousies, that they call the on-going hum of things

a disease of the ear and recommend breath-holding 
            as a cure? It’s said they sing

hymns to a coterie of aged parrots and at weddings

give gifts of broken trays, dented pots, torn quilts

            and clothes of the dead.

We’ve heard they have embassies underground,

that they’re gathering information on clans 
            from the north, spreading

rumours we choose our leaders from those who can

best predict the future from the scratching behaviour

            of flea-ridden dogs—

we can only think this is a result of their indulgence

in rancid goat butter and their belief that the mind 
            and the world are just shadowy

inventions and that wasps are lords of the sky.

I’ve sent a delegation carrying gifts of ivory, perfume,

            jewellery, pottery, leather

and copperware to show that our artisans are the most

delicately skilled. Our musicians will astound 
            them with their rhythms and flutes,

and I have written a poem about mathematics

and its relationship to floods and plagues

            which I hope can be translated

and recited, though we’ve heard their language

lacks complexity and rigour making it impossible
            to pursue perfection in thought.

Perhaps our sweetmeats can tempt them into trade,

though we’ve heard they produce nothing of value

            except a liquor made from

cinnamon and snake venom. We’ll offer them

our koumis, at a price of course, though we’ve 
            heard their currency is pond water

because it slips and scatters like money that’s made

in a dream. I just hope they don’t serve my hapless

            diplomats their notorious

cuisine—fried horse eyes and braised yak tongues

in a thick brown paste of their own fermented viscera.