Tsang Kam Yin

Tsang Kam Yin

Repeated Dance

—love like an ant ambling over a tombstone

Translated from the Chinese by Eleanor Goodman

The evening is superb, and I see with satisfaction
the body where she walked—assassinated
slowly swelling like the rock of Christ like she’s never shattered, like the sacrificial offerings will forever
tower over an untamed cemetery
and enter the memory

I know little of summoning souls
my dance
is not a prayer
not a gathering of all that can be burned, to be given to you
the ears are rubbed on stage again and again
ankles double-step in terror
Eros contorts, lifts the knife, forcefully
hacks away, wounding me, and then
kisses me with an edge
its final sound carries no emotion, no grief
to lift the body’s weak touch
waiting for the night to be extinguished so the hidden disaster can come forth

This world is as soft as a jellyfish
and I was once grateful for that
as for her gestures: teethmarks, tip of the tongue, breakers—
now, the muscles’ memory holds fast
like a child, or a disease
controlled by ceremony, spinning with repeating steps
and between the sagging mildewed seacoasts
dying peacefully

While waiting for the music to begin and end the ashes, both moving and moved, are more tenuous than a dream
my fingertips flutter in the air
wailing like a broken flute, heading toward the nothingness
ripping open another exit in the body
and then the many spectators stand and hang up their staff badges,
turn off the lights, drag their bodies across the stage
returning everything to as it was
leaving the theater robustly
knowing my imitation was meaningless
that repeated dance forever loses the human shape of love and hate