For Lauren Cerand
In my room overlooking
the Mississippi a voice tells me: in my city we bury
our dead above ground a voice whispers
not to lean against
windows not to pry open the window
By ZHENG MIN
Translated by STEPHEN HAVEN and LI YONGYI
Inside my body there is a gaping mouth,
A lion roaring
Rushing to the end of the bridge,
As the ship glides by.
By YU NU
Translated by STEPHEN HAVEN and LI YONGYI
Morning air pumped off, cannabis-induced despondency
Replaced him and her. Far away, his ball-playing days,
His cap floating on the river, his soft tissues
Like severed seaweeds. This happened in 1976.
The eating is like make-believe, a game
of imitation—sawdust pressed between
two hands becomes a pancake; soup pots steam
By JOHN FREEMAN
My father’s father
rode the rails west
into Grass Valley
and buried three
children in the
shadow of a tree that
spread its arms
around his bakery.
By BRUCE BOND
After Terrence Malick
When the dinosaur, at the dawn of mercy,
lifts his hoof from the throat of his rival
whose pulse you see, whose eye tells you seas
have parted into the ken of separate selves—
From Barbarossa: The German Invasion of
the Soviet Union and the Siege of Leningrad
The first sign of arrival fills the air
when smoke appears, dark red, like iodine
poured into ethanol, a helix, thick
and turning. What the burning marks is time—
the seasons, warehouses of food consumed
By LI YONGYI
Translated by STEPHEN HAVEN and LI YONGYI
Spiritual territory divided by Israel and Rome,
Capitol, the eagle and the military
Turned English into Latin, your ark of covenant
Lurking in “Old Europe” and exceptionalism.
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