〈The Flock of Sheep in the Shanzhai〉

(1) Life in the Shanzhai

On auction websites, every commodity
once listed, carries a marked price,
sometimes bundled with discounts and free gifts.
Ambiguous love letters from first love,
unwashed underwear after a lover’s heat,
manuscripts rejected by newspapers in one’s literary youth,
high-end smartphones, intimate inflatable dolls—
counterfeit goods flooding the market,
satisfying otaku desires
to live reclusively, hidden in the city.

On a Facebook page, by accident,
I discover some of my own verses
have been counterfeited.
For a moment, three black lines surface on my face.
Apart from the soul, can everything be copied?
The gestures and expressions when one speaks,
unspeakable sexual proclivities,
seductive ghosts drifting through dreams,
curse words muttered inwardly, circling the mouth when annoyed—
it feels like a peeled durian,
releasing a dense scent of bashful pungency.

(2) The Pen-Raised Flock

Can we still return to a beautiful past?
Tying knots to record events, carving love poems into cliff walls,
asking passing cicadas to recite them aloud.
Brewing a pot of green tea to receive
a first-time pen pal who has traveled far.
Kissing a girlfriend farewell on a suspension bridge,
vowing that fate will not fade, never to stray.

Life in the shanzhai makes hearts grow lazy,
degenerating into a pen-raised flock of sheep:
heads lowered, quietly chewing fodder,
sheared on schedule, injected with antibiotics.
Occasionally throwing a small tantrum,
yet once soothed by a stroke along the wool,
quickly remembering—since we have degenerated into sheep,
we should not yearn, deep inside,
for the wolf’s nature
and the desire to hunt.