Xiao Qiao

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 […]

The moonlight at my door is white. It flashes by like weaponry. A shattered scenery resolves into sweet and sharpened drops of candy. Bit by bit, they prick the slightly-slanted corners of your eyes. 我门前的月光很白 像某种兵器一闪而过 破碎的景象慢慢坚实 变成甜蜜的有点尖锐的球形糖果 一颗一颗 刺穿你微微倾斜的眼角 Return to table of contents for Issue 2 Winter 2010

The Chinese word for cactus, 仙人掌, translates as “Palm of the Immortals.”   The cactus grows not from immortal arms, but vainly from the sands, thirsting for a surgery: Oh cut me, cut me open, let me hear the water gush from me… Comes a western trader, peddling wigs as sleek as silver, whose merchant-eyes pierce […]