i’ve had another dream
in this season of not many dreams
that i own everything
except myself
i turn into a strange flower by night
but only see streaks of silver by day
my old country and me
we see each other on T.V.
and my future home is
but a castle floating in air
i have no land of my own
but a whole person of wishes
the end of a century is followed by its beginning
and whose soul will visit here in my absence?
the last rain of tonight
sounds like the weeping of the spring
bored, i put into the computer
the melancholy of a big city
—Yu Ouyang
“Permanently Resident in an Alien Country”