Chinese text 03:
 

 

Near the city centre's First Ring Road

a bus explodes like a repressed memory:

a shoddy job, done fast & dirty many years ago;

in an alleyway, an outline knives a young Han couple.

For days the mobile phone doesn't stop

chiming with a vague yet purportedly

grim portent. & then it does, your choice of words

having hit the jackpot: you're on the grand

casino radar now; you're speechless – that is,

suddenly incapable of speech.

You cross whole campuses – empty,

streams of conversation that murmur

with the fears of well-intentioned parents.

You leave town, quickly, on the Friday late-train.

You click your tongue at a golden puppy;

without a word, it takes the rice cake from your hand.