To Be Elsewhere

Photo credit: rmontiel85 from morguefile.com

We met in a coastal village

spent a lovely night without leaving an address

going separate ways. Three years later

we meet again by coincidence.

The whole

three years spun a novel

we abandoned:

They fail to recognize themselves

as though meeting in another story

for an encounter.

One asks: Who are you, so cold and weary

The other says: I only know a thread is loose on my sweater

                       The more you pull it, the more it lengthens

until I completely vanish.

~ Hsia Yü
(Translated from Chinese by Karen An-hwei Lee)