The Stranger

1 Minute Read Time

White walls protruding from a forest-covered hillside. — Photo by Declan Sun on Unsplash

This piece by YE Hui is translated from Chinese into English by Dong LI

1

He sits before the window 
Motionless, leaves falling 
On his head

Behind his back, in the mirror 
A girl naked
Crouches in a bald king

Her armor scatters on the floor 
In a square
Of twilight

Outside, an acacia tree turns 
In an instant, into raw iron
A horse herd becomes stones

2

A road leads
To the depth of the fallen kingdom

He remembers there 
Talking with a passerby
About heavenly signs, plagues

And ominous birds
As well as an owl, do you know 
Where does it come from

It arrives
From antiquity, a cat’s nightmare

All he hears around him is the sound
Of stepping on dried leaves, but he cannot 
See his face

陌生人

1

他坐在窗前
一动不动，树叶落到
头上

背后，镜子里
 一个裸体的女孩
绻缩在谢顶的国王身体中

她的盔甲散落在地板上
在一方块
黄昏的光线中

外面，剌槐树
瞬间变成
生铁，马群变成石头

2

一条路通向
陷没的国土深处

他记得在那里
与一个路人谈论着
天象、瘟役

以及不祥的鸟
还有猫头鹰，你知道
它来自哪里吗

它来自
古代，一只猫的恶梦

他只听到四周
那踏着枯叶的声音
但看不到他的脸

YE Hui

is an acclaimed metaphysical poet from China. His poems in English translation have appeared or are forthcoming in 128 Lit, The Arkansas International, Asymptote, Circumference, Kenyon Review, Lana Turner and others. The first full-length English translation of his work, The Ruins, is forthcoming from Deep Vellum/Phoneme Media.

An Asian man with short black hair, smiling. He's standing in front of a white wall, and wearing a navy button-up and oval-shaped glasses.

Dong Li

is a multilingual author who translates from Chinese, English, French, German. His translation of the Chinese poet YE Hui was recently awarded a PEN/Heim grant. Li’s debut poetry collection, The Orange Tree (University of Chicago Press, 2023) was the inaugural winner of the Phoenix Emerging Poet Book Prize.

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