Sunday, June 12, 2011

To Be Elsewhere (Hsia Yu)

We met in a coastal village
spent a lovely night without leaving an address
going separate ways.  Three years later
we meet again by coincidence.
The whole
three years spun a novel
we abandoned:
They fail to recognize themselves
as though meeting in another story
for an encounter.
One asks:  Who are you, so cold and weary
The other says: I only know a thread is loose on my sweater
          The more you pull it, the more it lengthens
          until I completely vanish.

~As seen in Poetry: The Translation Issue (June 2011)
~Translated from the Chinese by Karen An-hwei Lee