An Ideal World
Day after day, year after year, the birds, sometimes just one, sometimes
a whole flock, flutter against the window of my study, pecking at the glass.
Their saliva, dried and white, builds up on the windowpane
and even the power washer cannot get it clean.
What mysterious flavor could those tasteless, rigid
sheets of tempered glass possibly be repaying them with?
I could never figure out why those birds would exhaust
their lives so tirelessly against the glass . . .
But today I stood for a moment outside my study
looking at it from the birds’ perspective
and suddenly I saw it: the trees reflected in the glass
their ghostly forms much more shapely than the real green trees behind me.
Three in the afternoon. Slant sunlight, towering buildings.
And these figures shimmering in their ideal world.
Why should I expect those poor birds not to be confused
where even humans are led astray?
I don’t need an epiphany. I just move a few steps to one side.
2015
About the translators
Austin Woerner is a Creative Fellow in Chinese-English literary translation at the University of Leeds.
Emily Xinyao Lei is an alumna of the MA in English Literature course at the School of English, University of Leeds.