On this the coldest day of Beijing.
I very nearly came to you
in retreat.

Your hands
hang down like red-crowned cranes.
Cold butts its head hard up against the door.
It’s as if I’ve come to visit
something that could float off at any moment.
They say
you musn’t drive away the fragrant smell of herbal medicines.

I see no temperatures.
Nor the illness inside you.
I cross
the compound of houses that contains you deep within.
Before your barely conscious bed
I am a dense fog that will not go away.

The backs of hands still living
give off a smooth, soft light like the surface of the moon.
I cannot bring myself to say
this name that has hurt for all these years.

The things of this world
turn topsy-turvy.
Of all the down in the whole city
not a single feather still has the strength to soar.
I alone
balloon flimsily in the chill wind.

Like a plume of distant, fugitive smoke
you refuse to go away,
my friend.