NIGHT WALKING BEAST

Ancient city, path lit by candles;

dark miasma licks my brows.

A cortège, clothed in white, all smiling.

Thus the dead lead on the living.

I can almost smell steamed bread, graveyard offerings.

I race along the city wall,

slicing night.

This is China, a sooty ice chunk on the street,

tumbling anyone. It’s all over,

no more Lü Bu in color, his sword, his painted halberd rusted through.

Here, right here!

The mourners taste my slashing claws.

Sages vanish, a

qilin

appears, ten thousand arrows shoot at once.

Phantom lights amid coal cars, endless discord.

A night traveler longs pointlessly;

dark dreams ignite the letter in his breast.

An assassin vaults for the ridge beam.

In ten thousand years, a great conflagration may scour the world.

One blink away.