Somehow - Hsia Yü

She took a fan and painted a bird on one side

And a cage on the other and then she spun

The handle in her hand till we could see the bird

In the cage and then she put the fan away and smiling

Asked us what we thought it was she’d said

I love you we said but that was wrong she said and then

We said I love you not but that was wrong

As well and then she took us home

Roaches flourish in these aging north-facing flats

She enlightened us as to the many places they infest

The belly of the fax machine

The interstices of the TV

The tape well of the answering machine

All those places warmed the year long by electricity

Did we have any conception? No, not really

All that we could think of was how nice it would be

If we too could worm our way into the hi-fi

And make our indolent bed there where the music pours out

On all those mornings which we dub the limitations of the age

When we are bathed in the radiance we say

Let all good things converge

Let our pain be our strength and at any moment let us

Be prepared to show our guests the bruises on our hips

And the scratches on our backs as we recite those

Words from somewhere ‘L’amour n’existe pas,

Mais la preuve d’amour existe’

Every time we went to her flat it had that

Look of having been ransacked by thieves

And indeed a thief did finally pay a call

And the conspiracy they hatched was this

He took only things she did not need so she never knew he took them

More importantly he helped her rummage up the things she’d lost

And so whenever we went to her flat after that

She had that look upon her face of ‘Well, why not?’

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Hsia Yü (born 1956) Taiwan

Translated by Steve Bradbury

Source: Jacket Vol 8, July 1999