Saturday Night Poem by Xiao Kaiyu

Rush into a restaurant, order a bowl of noodles.

eaten in two minutes, appear very busy, pay no attention too

to the black cat squatting on the floor - it cries

fawningly throughout. Only two people in the little place,

me and the proprietor. He stands askew by the counter

all the time smiling at a bug zapper, half-heartedly

handling my impatience, seemingly approving

of the dry dullness of the evening. While he earnestly looks for change,

I feel having something to do is really important.


So on to the street, buy a paper,

(no news) as soon as a bus stops, get on.

The cold air in the bus is excessive,

I shiver violently, quickly lean back in the seat.

Everyplace on the bus there is plastic, wood chips and a strange smell

of paint. Not many people on the bus, it's raining,

who wants to get out? If not returning home,

if not driven by an unreliable notion,

who would want to spend four bus tickets, head lolling,

almost asleep as one passes through Nanjing Road?


One hour, on waking I hasten

to get off. 'A bit of bad luck!' somebody says

behind me. Absorbed in wiping glasses

he's missed his stop. I turn my head and glance back,

the bus swaying, drives into a dusk

composed of a drizzly night-sky and neon lights.

I know the young guy at the bank entrance

is the person I want to see. He's stubby-necked,

short, says he's a robber, of course,

he's already done his utmost to unearth his appearance.


Before we walk into a fast-food shop

we have a few words. Order cold drinks

sit by a window, we start talking about a few

interrelated parties. Their pain

running back and forth between universities. Furthermore,

they're also in the habit of easy sneers,

ridiculing their own organs. Driven to it,

and all manner of planned boredom. After a while,

he looks away at the street in the window, with difficulty

comparing streets and cities in his mind.


In passing he mentions his mother's funeral,

many relatives, many firecrackers, many

unknown children, but very little time

spent by relatives around her portrait exchanging grief.

He thinks her death ended an argument.

Ultimately I can't make out who and who

decide to put the medicine in bread, her eating it

for a month, then her final smile.

We're appropriately quiet for a while

see we've already dragged the time out long enough,

so stand up and take leave: 'Till next time!'


Once on the street, he vanishes.

It's not yet late, before going home no harm

in roaming the streets. Again that unreliable

bad notion grabs me. Wild heart beats.

Smoke a cigarette. Even go to a cinema to look

at a program schedule - it seems I've seen all the films. One

about opium, one divorce, another

about one among us conquering emotion.

The solution I obtained at age 10 is now still

mocking my question: I belong to us.


So, the good sign of a day is

a stroll, a bath, to irritatingly slowly utter

nonsense while using the personal singular. What

does it mean? Some streets, some bands

play the national anthem and martial music. The open doors

of a store extrudes a stream of cold air, inside

two girls select tops. At this moment,

I want to go home. Otherwise under the viaduct,

following a master of qi, I must study the use of feet

to scratch my back, to box. Or, instead, to walk with my hands.


Staff are yawning, carrying computers,

slipping into cabs; the lights of buildings tall and short

start to wink out. From an alley bar

comes applause for jazz. After all,

so noisy at such a time of sleep,

it's as if a week of life finally reaches a climax.

In fact, very quickly the bus is at its stop. Now,

the night is deep but grayish-white, not inky-black,

returning to school, by the road I even see

in the woods, two children walking arm in arm.