I Have Gone Shimmering into Ungentle Sleep

Sandy Longhorn

This fever is my tutor. It lectures
 scarlet on my cheeks, pale quarter-moons

on all my fingernails, a heart that gallops beneath
the cold sting of stethoscopes unleashed.

I repose & ripen with the weight of secrets,
for I swore an oath to silence.

This bed my penitentiary, though 
my chains be pointless, cotton-woven.

Lethargy of limbs another symptom 
pressed into the chart. The noise of the pen

blisters the brain. The catheter in the vein 
delivers ruination, dreams induced to knock

my damaged crown askew. When I wake, my bones 
have been replaced with porcelain, sinew

altered to wire, and my tongue, my tongue 
lets loose what once was barred & guarded.

浮光中我已入纷扰的梦乡

Zhongxing Zeng

Translator's Note

这热症是我的老师。它教会我
脸颊上的猩红,我所有指甲上
 
苍白的半月,在解开的听诊器的
冰刺之下狂奔的心。
 
在秘密的重担中我躺歇着并成熟了
因为我曾向沉默发誓。
 
床是我的牢房,虽然
我的枷锁没有棱角,是棉织的。
 
四肢的倦怠另一个症状
记入了表格中。笔记的噪音
 
让大脑起了水泡。静脉中的导液管
传递毁灭,衍生的梦击歪
 
我残败的皇冠。当我醒来,我的骨头
已被替换成陶瓷,肌腱
 
变成了铁丝,而我的舌头,我的舌头
说出了封禁已久之事。

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