THE WORLD RAINS ALL NIGHT LONG

for Zhuo Qing

The world rains all night long

this common night—

someone casts away his useful life before the TV,

someone drifts and sinks in a wine glass,

someone drowns weakness in desire, tempering an ego.

No mere concepts, you’d agree,

the world must be classified.

I’m thinking of spring weather, trees in the garden,

water plants, couples dancing by the shore.

The rum ice-cream we enjoyed.

If I offered you

life’s wounds, things might have been different.

Or not. To you, others’ healing’s irrelevant.

That spring I hesitated,

our genial and dark meeting, beer, embraces,

lipstick in the morning, camera.

Zhongguancun. Lunch with a beloved.

Jewish history. Stuffy cafe.

The details of life mounting like a tide.

That one night

you returned from mountain climbing,

just overcoming a crisis.

You were not the first, nor the last,

but I believed those moments with you,

how the night rain drenched us both.

Your sense of it I dare not guess.

Crows in the countryside speak for death,

but are not necessarily ominous.

Now I recall only the hand whose warmth I held.

You’ve become a shared memory,

my task in this life to engrave.