Inside
Inside a stone there is stone and a memory of the movements of the Earth’s crust
Inside a brick there is brick and the memory of fire or the forgetting of fire
A flower, when open, has no inside, just as rain has no inside
Inside a seed are the seasons and a desire for growth
Inside a fly there is flesh that is unknown to me
Inside a chicken are organs, blood vessels, meat, bones, and a dumbness of the soul
Inside a person there could be a mouse, or there could be a dragon
Inside a person there could be a village, or there could be a stream of piss and a turd
Inside a person it’s definitely dark, there isn’t even starlight in there
A person’s dreams slowly disappear inside them
Inside of a group of people there are people, and peaks and valleys as well
Inside a group of people there once was not, but now there is, a bank
Inside a bank sits the chairman of the board, who sometimes turns into
a prisoner, a teacher, an actor, a commander
But inside a cell there is a universe, and it didn’t begin with a bang
while inside a virus there is a sniggering devil
Just as inside a human disaster there is scheming, miscarriage of justice, and stupidity
and inside a breath there is panic, sadness, and death
10 May 2020
About the translators
Austin Woerner is a Creative Fellow in Chinese-English literary translation at the University of Leeds.
Morty Shiqi Zhang is an MA student currently enrolled in the English Literature course at the School of English, University of Leeds.