Josh Stenberg writes and translates fiction and poetry. Stints in Nanjing, Hong Kong and Taipei have led him to a job teaching Chinese literature, theatre, and language at The University of Sydney.
lessons of a siesta in Quanzhou (alas not me the sleeper)
sometimes i must lay my bitterness to rest
like a naughty child. as when the
grandfathers bring their brollies to the school
to protect their red-kerchiefed progeny’s
progeny from the june brilliance on the lunchway back—
briefly home, nearly home— or the older womaning
girls pass idly by in para-summer, sucking cold fruit
fantasy lollies and rolling notes from their
teachers into karaoke microphones; but mostly
in the temple gardens, when the visibly ailing dame
says, yes you can run around but stay where
you can see gran and the boy, maybe four,
(your age) says so, can i go up the path?
is gran on the path?
you, the you who is nearly you:
a word in and from passing.
turn with care and impress her
on your furtive mind, your bricolage
of rapid parts. it’s not the path
that is fugitive, it is the things taken in
so deep and early that they are the only undiscoverable.
~
City of springs
this is not to say goodbye i am already gone.
departed the city of trickling springs, that bleed down
the mountain and fill the men.
across three roofs, the regular scarecrow casts forth his
roving pigeons; the barber is ordering marble and
gilded frames; the child bats a shuttlecock
tantrum-spike-down. beneath:
leafy fictions in olive, mendacious and blossoming
like raw little sores.
who can avoid, in the end, the florist?
how carefully he poses the chrysanthemums
in the vase, musing about
the rounding of his belly but also
what he will do later to his lover.