This Translation Tuesday, senses heightened by a sleeping pill, Taiwanese writer Maniniwei exhibits a wonderful sensitivity to touch. Everything in this dreamy poem feels as if ‘felt’. The softness of her cat, the points of its claws and teeth, the texture of the night, the contents of her dreams; they are as if sensations in the fingertips have been translated directly into a lilting prose-poetry, which have been rendered with equal care and skill into the English by Emily Lu.

I needed more distance from you. cicadas screamed as if giants were about to descend. my morning. was your tiny playground. today I took an ativan. weighed you on the scale. patted my own belly. and patted the cat one hundred times. your hand was bigger. sturdier. the nights were sturdier too. don’t ask the sand what it saw. which horses. which humans. I liked time on you. the flying humans from the picture stopped to rest in your mind’s boat. the fresh flowers and IV pole on your body. your nighttime bite and cough. your shoulder, eaten. I wrote this song for you. today I ran. today I only took one ativan. patted your fur. celebrated your fur. comforted your fur. your sweet fur. wet from the rain. very quickly I got hungry. didn’t do anything and hungry. Two scratch marks left by the cat. no blood. nothing. I saw it. you looked like a god of spring.

Translated from the Chinese by Emily Lu

Maniniwei is a Malay-Taiwanese writer and illustrator. She was writer-in-residence at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2021. Her works have been recognized by OPENBOOK, the Bologna Ragazzi Award, the Taoyuan Chung Chao-Cheng Award for Literature, and the National Culture and Arts Foundation. Restarting her creative practice after age 30, she is the author of more than ten books. She lives in Taipei with one child and two cats. This is the first time her work has appeared in English.

Emily Lu was born in Nanjing. She completed her MD at Queen’s University in 2017. She is the author of the chapbooks there is no wifi in the afterlife (San Press 2022) and Night Leaves Nothing New (Baseline Press 2019), as well as works appearing in Waxwing, Augur, Honey Literary, Arc Poetry Magazine, and filling Station. She lives in Toronto. This is her debut translation.