Landscape No. 2 - Lin Heng-t’ai

Lines of trees to break the wind

And beyond them other

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

14 • metaphor - Chen Yuhong

you try to piece together
a thousand machine-cut, polished
pieces of moon

Electric Lock - Shang Ch'in

Tonight the streetlights where I live went out at midnight as usual.

Woods - Liu Qiyu

Reaching each root in sequence
the hidden water is silver-white
advancing in the way cogs catch onto cogs

27 • metaphor - Chen Yuhong

you suspect love is
a voracious one-armed bandit

Now These Objects Will Move by Themselves - Hsia Yü

Every time you get to thinking this time doesn't count
Every time you come to feel this here and now isn't real
The sound of silk ripping in the air
You run inside as fast you can
Hide yourself