形势喜人 —Yan Guiming, October 1974
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i.
mao makes thick lines in my red
book. ants make thick lines in
the sand. china makes a thick line
down a stratosphere. my father’s name
is a thick belt around my waist. what I
should lose encircles me: chain link
fence, my sister’s face—pruned & pitted
in the dark. last year I carried sweet
potatoes in a barrel & stored them
beneath a bed. last year I sold many
dark hunks of coal. my father came
home & took off his stethoscope.
my father came home & lined
his forehead with sweat. I was
a small line of army ants beneath
the bed. my father was a long line
of men who lost their jobs. I was
fighting for breath when they shut
down the universities. my sheets
stunk with sweet potato. my sheets
stunk. bodies rained sweat. gratifying
as in my sister chased me beneath
the persimmon tree but I was
quick, quicker. I descend from
a lineage of flat lines. we compose
a horizon. red pearl as in red sun as in
a father’s mouth when he tells us
to shut up, things are gratifying while
his eyes cut what is sweet into tiny disks.
ii.
there is a myth about monkeys trying
to catch the moon inside a well. their
tails curl around each other as they
lower themselves into the water. they
push wet fists through the moon for
days, & on & on the water ripples.
iii.
what I am is monkey. pushing my hand
through the reflection of a moon. a decade.
a persimmon tree with all its leaves shaking
shadows onto yard. what I am is taut
line stitching me to my father, who is
also nation. who is also bone. no spoons
in the household but a rack of skinny
meat. no spoons in the household
but a line of daughters looking
their red books in the eye. the situation
is gratifying. the situation slid me across
a sink. my father was my father until
I watched him turn his mouth into
a pearl. soundless when the Red Guard
implied counter-revolutionary action & he
said nothing. flattened from my father
into a line of water. they took him away,
made my face river. made
an entire country flood.