MAYDAY

HOMETOWN 故乡 by Xiao Qiao (translated by Cindy M. Carter)

Contributed By: , ,

A hometown is a nose bleed
(or construction-site cement
coursing through your parents’ veins)
a warm current that
even time cannot resolve

Picking up a piece of the past
is like picking up a fragment of bone,
unearthing night’s dark flesh

A hometown isn’t fertile soil
(but it is a ferry)
a poor and humble river
that lacks direction
and doesn’t corner well

05 – Beijing (1987) photograph by Han Lei

故乡让人流鼻血
（工地的水泥在父母体内搅动）
那是时间也无法解释的热流
随便拾起一截往事
就像拾起一截骨头
裸露着黑夜的皮肉
故乡
不是沃土
（而是轮渡）
而是贫贱的河流
没有方向
没有灵巧的转弯

Return to table of contents for Issue 2 Winter 2010

Further Reading

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Aporia
by Paul Adler

The blurred cypress has its own quiet math as you speed divine with the white tongue of a cloud descending to lick a strip mall. Motion is a means to forget, so that each fluorescent burst of brush is erased, so that all night cities are replaced by brighter versions of themselves. A small benevolence, […]

Intimates
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There’s an underwear catalog on the boss’s desk; you notice it when you’re in his office filing invoices. Not Victoria’s Secret or anything. It’s not some pathetic substitute available for men too embarrassed to buy Hustler or even Playboy. In fact, there are no models in this catalog at all—it’s just underwear. Men’s and women’s. Boxers and panties. […]