Twelfth Month
Zhou Mengdie

My ear membranes are rusty—soon they’ll be cocoons!
Between dreams and isolation
I’m a snake! coiled in fantasies of waking up to spring.

Who knows how much time my sleep has flattened?
The night’s as long as sorrow;
Cold’s shell cracking inch by inch.
Where did the mail boat run aground
that set out from Subzero
carrying the Twelfth Month in bloom?

In dreams I always see snowslides,
creepers swinging from steep cliffs,
touch-me-nots no more to be restrained,
eyes closed, ruminating wind and sun…

while a stone lion, its face
gloomier than Le Penseur’s,
stands up, hops up eastward,
and roars till the dawn awakens
that makes Chaos laugh forth its tears….