HOTEL VIKING

In the wake of a prefabricated passenger ship

the ocean, as if with an old cotton blanket

weighs deeply on a body wide awake

The sky in the eyes of a scattered school of fish

grows brighter and brighter. The bridge that spans the

brine crosses also the opaque middle-aged mind

dark path between two precise terms

My mother grieving

writes to her faraway son

Waterbirds, lonely, follow the lights

toward regions of cold where they hover

This evening the hotel room's thermosystem

thundered without rest. Number 634

said the key in the unlit hallway

In my homeland some valuable

persons are disappearing

XUE DI

trans by Hil Anderson and Keith Waldrop

Last Updated: May 15, 2004