Aiden Heung
Again I Return to the Battered Town
I hold myself in my hands the way
mountains hold this tiny town,
the clouds are the calluses. No rain,
air heaps dust at my eyes.
End of summer, and still I don’t know
how to respond to the sudden change.
Moments of cold like shipwrecks man refuses
to believe. But it’s here pulling at my skin.
Far off, the monotony of beauty:
diluted sunset, bony ridges of Lu mountain,
a few buildings rise-bamboo from groves
of swaybacked trees. My town! If I could
call it mine, but the sound of Nihao
and Zaijian has failed me when each syllable
carries the tones of two languages, the way
my body carries both yesterday and now
whenever I flee the long arm of memory.
But here I am, cowering at the foot
of a brick wall, and watching darkness
conjured from each crack to form something.
If only it were easy to form myself likewise.
So I toss my cigarette to the wind, and admire
the spark’s beautiful and fatalistic curve.
Almost evening, I have nowhere to go.
Aiden Heung (he/they) is a Chinese poet born in a Tibetan Autonomous Town, currently living in Shanghai. He is a Tongji University graduate. His poems written in English have appeared in The Australian Poetry Journal, The Missouri Review, Orison Anthology, Parentheses, Crazyhorse, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. He also translates poetry from Chinese to English; his translations were recently published in Columbia Journal and Cordite Poetry Review. He is on Twitter @aidenheung.