Translated by Eleanor Goodman
A driver used to long-haul raids, I watch

pigeons by the gas station, waiting for fries dropped by people

     coming out of the fast food joint
a few people with obscured faces wait in the cold wind for

     odd jobs, they and the pigeons

make Ronald McDonald sort of look like Jesus—is that

     what I’m afraid of
no, I’m not afraid of that, although I’m Chinese—Wang

     Xiaobo’s little brother Wang Chenguang

was attacked on the street, but let me tell you I’ve been in

     fights, you think it doesn’t matter
but I’m used to it, in Saint Louis or a motel on the outskirts

     of Chicago

I’ve achieved it deep within myself, an unflappable cool, since

     in a dimly-lit situation
with my long hair and quick steps and slightly crazy eyes, a

     classmate once took me for a thug.

of course I’m not but that doesn’t make me worry—what

     really makes me afraid
which is more likely to affect me, there’s no need to say, but

     the feeling follows me

turning my shadow from a hunting dog into a wild horse

     into an even more terrifying animal at hunt, and so if I were

     walking down the street in my hometown

I’d be aggressive, those who’d dare bother me haven’t even

     been born, and the blast

distorted the street, and that might be even better for me to

     walk down, and did you think I’m actually afraid
my childhood friend Xiangdong who worked in a chemical

     plant, already dead from cancer

my next-door neighbour, beaten to brain damage and stuck in

     a madhouse where no one will ever buy him cigarettes again
the dread I feel isn’t because fate is ruthless and decisive, the

     sutras have explained that

in my dreams the mountains and oceans are behind me, as

     though it’s a prophecy, but the scope is so big the details are

     unclear
I fear the mentality of my feet not being afraid to wear shoes,

     that’s where the problem lies.

trying to be a hero is just wishful thinking, and even if you’re

     abroad, you suspect that if something happens

it will be set off by your countrymen—I fear this attitude, I

     hate this kind of unflappable cool, bound up in a bird’s nest
of dread in my sleep, hearing the wings of birds of prey

     flapping like the sound of cut paper

at such moments, perhaps fear is unrelated to bravery, it has

     to do with millions of hope-crushing feet
stepping behind the simple mould of cause and effect, ten

     years before epic poetry, countless people had already

     silently collapsed
this really isn’t a question, beetles can survive under water for

     forty minutes, so they can adapt

to an unfriendly world, and in an age of oil they win, they feel

     contented
with their lack of security, and of course I want to be like that

     too, when my hometown explodes to look like its own

     reflection in a funhouse mirror