Aching For Your Pain (Yan Li)

by Yan Li (translated by D Mair) I've never set foot in medical school Don't ask what I'd look like in a white lab coat You could call me an underground practitioner But only the "underground" part would really fit There were years back then When poems scorched by the one mighty sun Kept cool with me in subterranean shade But be that as it may What I want you to know is I am aching for your pain Life is on its own as the century turns To scenes of business spreading worldwide But I flip to the page for reading each other Where individual wounds Join forces in ideal forms of pain How I wish for devices of cinema To unreel our diagnosis on the screen Not presuming we will walk out cured But joining in the pain with different body parts And so I say To the human race Only your wound is huge enough For the pain I ache to express