外公,I Never Knew You
I lingered too long in dreams—
unlearned the grammar of Zhu Zhoudialect,
practiced Armageddon like a mothertongue,
just like the china melted soft intoKaolin clay.
外公,I never knew you,
but I knew your ashes. Bonded
by something eternal before your
grave—there I imagined you
carving your china with us—
外婆,mother and me.
Your hand, wrinkled like sandpaper,
worn out by the thousand-kilogram weight
of cement and steel you used to carry
for a measly wage to support the family
into tree-rings of time spun from scars,
still warm.
You gave them—
mother, 外婆,uncle—
your breath, your bones, your
dawns, the short ribs you regarded
as sacred, brought home, bought
with the endless hours of
lifting bricks, cement, steel—
until one day, you
collapsed under the burning sun.
I knew you in the bedtime stories,
the stories woven by my mother's tears.
I knew you in the silent frame
yellowed by the widowed time's wait,
resting under 外婆'spillow.
This Qingming,
on my way back to Zhu Zhou
where earth holds you,
tires etch memory into aching tar.
Every kilometer splits in paradox:
fleeing from nowtoward then,
each wheel-groan
unspools new Möbius threads
binding me— mother, 外婆,uncle —
to you