HIDE AND SEEK AMID FLAMES

Someone seeks light in darkness;

someone enters a nunnery, flowers in humble hands;

someone on the night ferry sees sudden rain leap from the surface;

someone changes jobs, changes buses, changes ID photos;

someone shines an old bronze statue;

someone hoists a section of railway, searching for grass seed;

someone draws faces on a red-cloth bag; they scatter like stars;

someone takes a deep breath in dense fog, drowning;

someone empties his wallet for bouquets of fireworks;

on an impulse, someone roams the mountain and vanishes forever;

someone fishing gets promoted in a dream;

someone born with nothing dies with nothing, drifts over with snow;

someone pickles the thunder god for a tasty dish;

someone builds a paradise, licking the knife edge in performance;

in a coal mine, someone descends four months, rises with a short story;

someone longs to build a Tiananmen in Linfen;

someone will pay fifty thousand to have dinner with Schwarzenegger;

someone with breast implants refuses a rich man’s bid of 5 million;

someone at government headquarters wears a black veil to work;

someone thinks he’s an airplane, his bow tie the propeller;

someone feels in the dark for an axe, careless his swings will gash himself;

someone breaks into a bank in daylight, steals only a tarnished mirror;

someone falls in love then falls out, showing his police badge;

someone blind climbs a vine that leads to heaven;

in a rainstorm, someone drinks alone, pouring his own wine;

someone resigns from a high position and goes home;

someone hurries overnight to the imperial exam;

someone plays hide and seek amid flames;

everyone plays hide and seek amid flames;

the soldier, the thief; the thief, the soldier.

A dream. Wind howls blood, oblivion. Wake to gnawing at the heart.