Letter
Curious, I sit on the sofa
in the gentle lamplight, reading a letter
I wrote many years ago
to my parents from overseas –
the handwritten characters still crisp and vivid
telling them about my life in a foreign country
about watching the Olympics
and what I saw and thought and felt
Next to me on the sofa, my brother
is laughing and talking with me
while behind us in the kitchen, my parents
bustle about cheerfully, preparing dinner
A sudden burst of firecrackers outside
welcomes the New Year –
I come back to my senses, realise
I was dreaming
because my parents and my brother
have been dead for many years
About the translators
Austin Woerner is a Creative Fellow in Chinese-English literary translation at the University of Leeds.
Yu Xue'er and Zhu Qiaoyu are alumnae of the MA in Audiovisual Translation and Localisation course at University of Leeds.