被遺棄的老人
The old lady, left behind,
活到94，白白淨淨依然活著，注視著陌生的來人
94, clean and tidy, still living, watching strangers
進出昏暗的窨子屋，話很少。
enter and leave the dim yinziwu, says little.
被遺棄的中年人
The middle-aged man, left behind,
清代小官吏打扮，在另一座窨子屋裏，表演清官斷案，
got up like a local Qing official, acts the judge in another yinziwu,
娛人娛己而已，可領到少許工資。
amusing tourists and himself, earning a few kuai.
他老婆還是他老婆
His wife’s still his wife,
大汗滿臉，洗菜用水，切菜出聲，炒菜起油煙，
her face shining with sweat, rinsing vegetables, chopping noisily,
盼望搬進山上的新房，遺棄這本屬他人的舊居
cooking in the smoky pan.
She hopes to move into a new house on the mountainside, abandon this old place
三十年代的小軍閥遺棄了洪江
owned by someone else.
四十年代的土匪遺棄了青樓
五十年代的掌櫃的為國家捐罷飛機就遺棄了櫃檯
In the thirties, the small warlords left Hongjiang.
In the forties, the bandits left the brothels.
打壽材的手藝
In the fifties, the shopkeepers left their counters after donating airplanes
被一個初中文化的青年繼承下來
to the nation.
這類生意任你天翻地覆將持續到地老天荒
The coffinmakers’ craft
好風景總是破舊的
left to a young man with a middle-school education.
牆上褪色的標語表達過革命，現在留給遊人
His trade will last till heaven and earth expire, no matter
槍斃過反革命的路口現在留給了新型資本主義
how the world inverts.
而舊資本主義退回
What’s left behind makes good landscapes,
農業的月色，被埋葬於江聲、老鼠的嘰嘰叫
old revolutionary slogans fading on the walls, preserved for tourists,
和鬼魂的附庸風雅的吟誦
the intersection where counter-revolutionaries were executed,
preserved for capitalism’s new face.
在某間舊油號的地下
幾頓舊黃金重現，歸了政府，不知是否又重新
Yet the old capitalism remains
流通回社會？——受不了得勢者的哈哈大笑。
beneath the farmer’s moon, beneath the rush of the river, the rats’ squeaks,
the high-flown recitations of old ghosts.
沅江和巫水依舊匯流於舊地
運桐油的大船是否會為開發旅遊，響應黨的號召
Under an ancient oil-trader’s shop
而從水下開回舊碼頭？
a few tons of gold bars were found, turned over to the government. Who knows
what recirculates? Those with the upper hand, their laughs unbearable.
The waters of the Yuan and Wu still merge where they always did.
The big boat that carried tung oil, will it open to tourists, as the party wants,
towed to its old dock?