Oranges
You were thirteen, unwilling
to leave for boarding school
so your father grabbed an old
TV antenna and beat you with it
Next morning, before dawn
a suitcase next to your bed
and a bag of bright oranges
full of the smell of September
On the back seat of the motorbike
you clutched the cold oranges, thin
transparent plastic clinging to you
and your father’s back, connecting you
No talk, just the sound of the motorbike
filling the silence while trees and gusts
of black rain followed you up over ridges
and down steep mountainsides
Day was dawning, farmers were burning stubble
houses in town were lighting up one by one
houses, smoke, bright windows…
and oranges, cold, afire in your lap
About the translators
Austin Woerner is a Creative Fellow in Chinese-English literary translation at the University of Leeds.
Shen Zhi is a bilingual poet and translator from Chengdu, China. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is currently pursuing a PhD in literary arts at Beijing Normal University.