LIVING TOGETHER Poem by Duo Duo

They'll meet the three intents of life
around the corner: embers from an old men's pipe,
children's graffiti on the wall,
and a woman's wet leg in the rain.

They wander around, a whole night,
near the small white house, for signs.
The sun rises, a place to stay is still not settled.
From this point on things start to go wrong.
Without praying they cuddle in bed.
They pay no attention to the light that brutally breaks in
later on and fall asleep with a hearty smile
as if dead.
They get up and leave—not even bother to recall
the tender moments—they walk through streets
and enter a building with no marks—
disappearing in there—
in the same way
his mother predicted before she died.

In fact they have every intention
to look for the moment
that intersperses with memories of the past.
From time to time
they carry on conversations in code,
as on a snow day
walking back from the fog with a gentle pace,
in the same mood as peeling an orange for a patient.
The flowers from that greenhouse
must have left them, through the purple fog,
a memorable impression.
They start to cheer up
and blaze.
Let it be. Let them
stay unconscious briefly.
—Go
whisper a beat
but do not stir them.
Do not let the window of where they live together
go dim.
Do not let them lose
the strength to overlook the impressionistic wilderness.

When they walk to the street center at dawn
they see life. Life
is the cleaning man in blue overalls
who stops working
to watch them approach. A pipe in his mouth,
he stands in the morning—