ZHU ZHU

FOUR POEMS

translated by Stephen Nashef

The Demeanour of Foraging

Why do birds look so graceful in flight?
Their hungry cries just like singing
the way they poke their beaks in the snow
just like a gentle yet resolute archaeological dig
their inching together on branches just like notes dancing on a score
they pass food to one another as though kissing…

After Saying Goodbye

After saying goodbye, I follow her upstairs
and hear the keys in her bag playing hide and seek with her fingers.
The door opens. With a crack, the lamp
calls out the furniture’s names all at once and they wake,
embracing her with reflected light—the affection even seeps out the window.
An empty mirror gets to work hanging her portrait.
A few dresses hung on the back of a chair twitch into a ball,
still wallowing in the injustice of another day indoors.

Sitting on the small rug, her back against the sofa,
then leaning forward, nestling the chin that pulled free 
from a kiss into her upright knee, she slackens,
the wrinkles of unruly desire in the hem of her dress
regaining composure as they hang in the air, her own scent
crowding her breath, but something somewhere,
in the wooden owl’s beak, in a murky 
corner, still emits a fine spray of my lust.

She sinks into thought. A painting on the wall begins to blur.
Eyelashes flicker like a second hand out of sync with its biological clock.
A hair descends past her ear to her heel, its S-shape
teasing the present omnipotence of my gaze, 
but I can’t just reach out an affectionate hand—
it’d be something from a horror movie! Standing, I turn 
into a hug in the void. I have entered her 
numerous times, but not in the physical sense.

It’s not simply because the “no”
she said to me still clings to her lips, like ice
that needs more patience to melt,
but also, in my Bible, that very “no”
is a crucifix. With each choice I face
it seems to draw me to a better me—
only when I descend the stairway once more, will I 
fall blindly again into desire for her body.

Interval

for my birthday

Shapeless balloons fill the sky. Remnants
of heat sink into the cement, a bashful chill
dashes past like a girl in a dripping swimsuit,
revolving doors reflect flashes of light on the treetops, 
a subway carries away all the parts you have played,
not even the platform remains.
The cicadas are chirping like SS soldiers caught in an ambush,
the bites of mosquitos are becoming vicious with avarice.
Face this sense of pending doom with a high monk’s forgiveness.
You will, after all, live longer than them, even if
your intellect has sunk to new lows, the books you flip through
all congealed electrical waves, indecipherable code. 
You are a spy who has lost contact with the agency
for the time being, or forever? You don’t know. Perhaps
you are already on the list of martyrs fallen in battle
or have been designated a traitor, but experience tells you
this is an omen of a more dangerous assignment to come.
So you should cherish this interval of maybe
many years, maybe a day, or maybe only a few seconds.

Atlas and Gongong

I’m pretty sure they’re the same—
their lifelong mission to associate with the sky,
sometimes on their knees, bearing the weight
of the cosmos condensed into an iron ball, another time
charging headfirst into a mountain, forcing the stars to scatter.
Endurance and eruption, listening and howling, 
mute duty and swift revenge,
hunched column and soaring fire
—I’m pretty sure at some point in his life
he split into two people, 
playing with each action the role of adversary.
It isn’t for realism’s sake they don’t even embrace in dreams,
but because they’ve never been informed of the other’s existence.

Gonggong is a figure in Chinese mythology. The incident for which he is known is described in my loose translation of the following passage from the Daoist text Liezi: “Gonggong and Zhuanxu contended for the role of emperor. In a rage, Gonggong smashed into Buzhou Mountain, cracking the column that supports Heaven and snapping the rope that holds Earth in place. As such, Heaven tilts to the northwest, so the sun, moon and stars travel in that direction, while Earth is sunk on its eastern side, causing the rivers to flow east.”