DAI WEINA

FIVE POEMS

translated by Xiao Yue Shan

some day some month, night

dragged by ashes, the impulse, in mourning
hopes to lose way inside the evening
from changanjie to tiananmen
carving a path through the belly of country
the way i love you, still resembles rumour

a breathed-in kiss transfigures to a ten-year contract
our safeguarded promises written into a skit
we toast to our lives inside an anecdote
amidst the air of dreaming
sometimes i still faint from hope
it’s laughable, an occasional pain in the chest
the time for suicide pacts is long over
so how is it, how is it that one still suffers of such romance
time makes a mockery of the devout

ah, the smog is a patient killer
we are in no hurry to escape death

trace

a monk sits by me amongst the hibiscus
the western plum-flowers mirroring my image
i know the monk is—amongst some twenty thousand dreams
—the one i most closely touch
some language, i say only to an empty chair

younger, plum-flower busies herself bidding kindness to the crowd
then the sky collapses, and she finds someone like a washing-board
to scrub away pieces and pieces of sin
the days are worn and worn with use, as worn as a body
in the light crisp with spring, i’m using myself countless furious times

plum-flower while drunk while awake feels the absence of the inferno, the temple
the monk doesn’t pick flowers, just dryly smiles
i say, you smile again! i’ll write you up to the church
we belong to traces from a text that has yet to be written
as if birthed from parody. the resolution of our descent takes place
not in a temple nor a church but in some satire
i apologize to my entire life

the kidnapped mother

men grouped like elephants
upon coasts and hills, in candlelit restaurants and cacophonous markets
writhe in wild shapes, down upon one knee—
refusal is your life’s hidden trophy

that’s the past! the glorious past like a gold ring in the nose of an elephant!

unknowingly, the true opponent was delivered into your womb
your body became a nest, pulling a wire net around me
to the girl who had pulled elephants by their rings—
(knowing the artistry of selfishness was magic,
knowing how disenchantment induces desire)
you perform a nazi-style segregation
i curl into myself thinking of—
the tang legends in which a wife assumes the role of a concubine for her distant husband

time is a trickle of milk-white liquid, your shattered waterfall
(does anyone hear the elephants stomping)
your pride was forgotten amidst my joyful swallows
your iron spine became porcelain!
i needed no land, treaties, or weapons. only existing
was enough to compel you into kitchens, errands, bleached-out washing machines
when i was four we filled the frame of a peony-printed mirror
and I became upset wondering why mama was so pale and I was so dark
it’s okay, i’m patient enough to slice your tender whiteness
piece by piece to fill my own face…
like every spellbound houseguest in love with their rented youth
you, without pause—
encouraged me to rob you cruelly, constantly
i take a little more from you with each arriving day
and your love for me, by little, grows
i’m wholly draped in your cells, but it doesn’t mean
i can live on your behalf
when things like brilliance, ambition, and expectations finally become irrelevant
you earn a name—
woman

mask

dusk in which clouds are in pieces. she, in a lost language
searches for the footprints of someone masked, following
a slice of time, chipped off the apple-earth. 
your face remains invisible. defence, a kind of escape from
the girl hiding behind the leaves, her
eyes, tailoring your day’s moving landscape. 

through insect wings, she sees ornate flora upon the mask
reflecting the inner serpent like lake-water
longer than days and days, nights and nights
the lightning offers your affections deep into her ear
and there, after dying, bone warms to bone
as if residing upon starless water
sharpened tides, she is exchanging poems with the night

footprints atop footprints in life in kindness in duplicity
masks—can simultaneously conceal the virtuous and the cruel
is she expected to kneel, to clean away the poison you’ve walked on?
the curtain rises, revealing a riddle, and no matter the answer, never falls
the clouds she wants to separate revealed to be pure steel
hunger sharp as salt

your face transcendent
on the last day, she will stop in an urn
and towards the inexplicable—
proudly repay

dark falls beyond the canopy

you say, our lives aren’t missing anything
except the dawning of thundering tragedy

too many stars stolen into the canopy
their lights taking bites out of men and women
chiseling out a pond, scattering their crystalline offspring
your murmuring hair smuggles your newly discovered gender
I offer superficialities one by one
a single night reclines upon the canopy
you and I lie together, looking at its dark, arching spine

the moonlight is jumping rope at my feet, tracing the line
curiously searching for the origins of our tragedy

a pound of kisses hanging above our heads
and it is unbearable to eat them
darling, look at the outside darkening
we only have a mouthful of daylight left
to swallow your words is to first feed them to your lover

to truly understand the capacity of tragedy
should we have a wedding

peace doesn’t hold up to the test
people can only die atop one another little by little
when the lions are done with us, ancient snakes return to play
their scales, oiled to black, slipping our spines
but you and I stay entranced with the dazzling museum between us
perfume clawing into the brain, rain piercing dawn
waking up in the middle of such beautiful music
don’t you also think of dying?

to forget is to pick at scars, so hold the calamity close
before the things that don’t matter come and coax us away

the early songbirds have expired in this sad, clear morning
eternal light pours into our shared body
I’m praying we’ll be a temple’s glittering collapse
the endless peaks of your back are homes to giants
so the back of my head is bruised by fortune
—I’ve already taken your pain
the clattering of mahjong beyond the canopy is enough to bury an island
the amount of blood I’m craving to give 
will soon be enough to drown in