ISSUE 8

Peihe Feng

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A Malformed Love Song

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We walked through the freezing city hand in hand,

       looking for old records and used books. The first time

you kissed me in public – cornered by stacks of battered

       paperbacks with Dusty Springfield singing in the background –

you closed your eyes. Blind and approaching my lips

       as if drawn in by scent, sound, touch; anything but

the sight of my face. I cupped your face like Salomé

       raising the prophet’s head,

like bringing an urn of blood-red wine to her lips, and said,

       you would have loved me if only you could see me.

Then we were back outside, snow crackling beneath our steps.

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You pointed out the moon in the greyish sky.

       Back at home, you said, I never knew moons can rise

so early; which I interpreted as I can never hold your hand

       or even think about touching your lips in a bookstore

back at home. But on these streets we were anonymous –

       two blurry-faced visitors speaking in a lost language,

our trails disappearing behind us like steam and

       crystallizing into the translucent young sphere above

our heads. We stood side by side on a street corner

       to look at the moon, shoulders touching, as other lovers

walked straight through our diminishing body. Nothing to say, the moments

       fossilized in silence. Always I look toward your moving lips and see

the inevitable end: the way they’d formulate a goodbye.

       A void opens when you press them to my shoulders

and tear out a part of myself. We got into your rented car to kiss again,

       you with closed eyes, and I observing, a wide-eyed,

curious child, noticing

       this face in front of me for the first time.

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同袍 Tong-pao, or In the Same Clothes

 

I loved you when we were reciting an ancient battle hymn

together with 36 other voices in Chinese class, Jessica.

Your eyes were fixed on the ceiling fan,

which groaned with each difficult stroke in the stifling heat, your face

almost dubious, as if some philosophical truth had suddenly

dawned upon you. Had you also discovered the similarities between

us and the ceiling fans? Monotonous day in and day out,

standardized mass-produced existence, can’t even feel our own moving parts,

just like your lips moving instinctively to the lines written 2,000 years ago:

How can I be short of garments? I’ll be in the same clothes as you [1]

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something laughably similar to the words of the heroine

of the awful romance I was reading under my desk.

I’ll hold your hands and share my clothes with you, she vowed

on her wedding day, voice

muffled by her red, curtain-like veil: a blind woman all in red

to be led by many strange hands

into her red bridal chamber lit by many red candles. That’s the color scheme

of a battlefield, you’d tell me, animated by contempt, and that’s because

traditional married love is literal war. Shaking your head

as loose strands of hair swept softly over your forehead

like willow branches grazing a lake. The most famous

wedding vows in Chinese are adapted from battle hymns

pledged between male fighters, Think about it. I observe

your messed-up hair and glinting eyes, almost

blurting out these words: 

 

                                                 but we never

wear clothes different from each other, Jess; the school rules

on uniform have taken good care of that. White t-shirts with formal collars

and short sleeves touching our elbows, always baggy and falling over

our hips. So no boys would be looking at you girls, my grandma chuckled,

seeing my uniform drooping over my jagged bones

like a ghost blanket. For five-and-a-half days a week, I felt my skin

suspended in mid-air, polished

in the vacuum of my own warmth, the air so hot

that we’d wince at a touch as innocent as the fabric’s. Every day, we walk around

wearing the exact same clothes, Jessica, with the identical

blue-green school badge sitting on our left bosom – a pigeon

spreading its soft wings. I twirl the pattern between my fingers

in class and imagine it’s yours, slightly guilty at such thoughts,

as if the creature of chastity might transform into a scarlet A

when caressed by my yearning fingers.

 

Your bones are sharp beneath the sheer fabric

like an ancient army marching to war, spears jutting out

to the sky. You bend to pick up a pen

and turn around to catch my eyes. Hey,

you tapped my desk, isn’t this poem a bit too

homoerotic for Chinese class?

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[1] This line “岂能无衣？与子同袍” comes from the poem《无衣》from《诗经》The Book of Odes, the earliest poetry collection in Chinese history. Translated from Chinese by Peihe Feng.

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