by Qi’ang Meng
Counting the takeoffs and landings
inside an airport waiting-hall reminds me
of ebbs and flows, though
to nobody could I tell this.
*
Midnight, an old man riding a bike
flitted by the crossroad like a shooting star.
Merry Christmas, he said.
Merry Christmas, I answered.
*
She kissed me for so long that the church bell
dared not croon. The driver behind her
had loaded my baggage onto the shuttle bus
and waited by pretending to study a stop sign.
*
As soon as I type the last word, sunlight
buds out from the damp dark clouds
and rests, like a meek insect,
on my glasses frame.
*
I opened my eyes again
on a cradling train.
A hawk soaring over was
a grain of brown rice.
*
The novelist sitting next to me
for the whole morning must
have written a story about a dumb
poet staring at the fallen leaves.
*
By leaving the rented apartment on
Fifth Avenue, I let the potato chips
on the desk evaporate in vain
and the deck of cards divine its own future.
*
It was drizzling. The moon yawned
behind a white Ferris wheel, with
the crickets quenched
in the unfathomable bush.