.
.
unbearable,
dear sofia i am
listening as you translate this
daily i read and read, and it is listening, it is
to bear and bare a breast, so to speak, it is to keep
a b r e a s t, ab- rest...
.
arrested, arrested
by a light moving carefully,
a small good thing, as you say,
a rest
.
at rest, a t r e a s u r e, as you
say
just barely is enough
.
barley cans, borrowed
smoke, haze round the moon in your eye, eyyyyy
and here’s to flint striking
.
a rose, unbearable what,
dear sofia, pop and hiss
can opening cold room a match catching
.
fire, fire and the liquid air
which only just before you wrote me,
dear sofia, lay still and ,
.
now: embers, rough tips open, filling
in with shadow
like
dark trees, lashes falling slow over
half moon touch of branches
in the throat
.
.
Catherine Niu, 2021
.
.
.