Translation

My father kills birds with slingshots and stones

             before my father becomes a father. The feathers,

slick kniving strokes, the beak, a black inkstone. He offers

             the lettering brush body, soaked, to his brother,

not knowing the English word for raven but knowing

             it makes good meat. Here, there is a different

kind of sun—sun that cannot sop up the mud pools,

             sun that settles for haze. Here, in this mix of

gravel and water and dirt, his brother is still alive.

             Still treating him to fermented milk drinks,

clinking the cold ceramic bottles against the mesh

             tables, metal skeletons, in brittle harmony.

Still pointing out places to watch for thorny vines as they

             pass roaming chickens and carts of watermelon

on their way to burn joss paper at their grandfather’s grave.

             Still hanging spider webs across cypress branches

to catch cicadas before it rains. In the silk, the wings tremble,

             like spin tops being released from their strings,

the same circles and games of childhood finding space

             in my father’s writing and rewriting and rewriting

of  today. It’s all in the brown paper envelopes he keeps

             in his bedroom desk drawer, where the orange light

from the fountain lake behind the window flickers

             every time water makes its way back to water,

finding my father at night: here now, transcribing

             his brother’s correspondence, scrawled

handwriting, characters no longer recognizable, two

             inkblots waiting to be deciphered.