Anthem (Liang Xiaoming)

by Liang Xiaoming (translated by Denis Mair) - -to my first love, who tormented me, warmed me, crazed me, and sent me into reveries Why don't I sing of my Hangzhou love? The straight-stab-to-the-appendix of her pineapple smile Her slender fingers, sugar-coated lips Bedsheet freshness of her sobs, against my wayfarer's shoulder That whole field of moisture that flowed from her mouth I was Egyptian in my woodenness, face black like the bottom of a pan Stared down by cold wind of endless streets Pressed by crowded stones of an abyss Yet dreams around a water lily rivaled hairs in number Shone on gray walls from starry reaches above My curving childhood lane, my door of forlorn adolescence The deep-sunk moat made winding turns like her verdant breath The doubled-back streamer of her chin In arabesques of my pen this moment, sowing seeds on white paper Dancing to drumbeats of her tapered white feet Her plain bike on my pillow is the chrysanthemum that spins my thoughts Chrysanthemum with lips pressed together, honeybee with pressed lips Her eyes make wide gyres under my sky She is the trailing flight of a long skirt Over the translucent folds of my ears In Hangzhou, where Broken Bridge Was practically an anthem