Yunqin Wang is a writer based in Shanghai / New York. She writes in English, Chinese, and occasionally Japanese. She has been an editor for The Poetry Society of New York. Currently, she lives in Shanghai, where she serves food at a beer bar and music at a livehouse.
The First Dream
On the cold hospital bed, a baby’s heart
beat like a sheet of flame. Something small
and strong in an aseptic room. She arrived
on a clear Sunday morning, where jazz
is played down at the Jing’an Temple,
men lounging in bed, watching their wives
collecting mail. She arrived with an announcement,
silent like a leaf. When the doctor handed her
the first towel, it was by instinct that she knew
it had nothing to do with the crying, but a prize
for her safe landing. She learned scents.
Felt skins. Saw shapes and colors without
rushing to name, the world full of possibilities.
What came next was an earthquake. 1996
was such a peaceful year that the earth trembled
like a huge cradle. In a flash, she saw streets
reeling backwards. She heard music
in broken things, then fell asleep
like water in yet another tide.
It was the first dream of her life. And now,
20 years later, curling in the bathtub
in a shaking room in Seattle, the dream
suddenly comes alive and she realizes
whoever built the earth must have made a terrible mistake:
he must have reached for the sky to plant the first seed,
thus the world, made upside down.
The girl grew bigger each day. Along the road,
collected stones like counting clouds. Sang
to the wrens on poles ancient tales of how
they all once kinged the lands. It is with such a dream,
that the girl learned to wing, for the rest of her life,
on the earth’s vast apron.