Josh Stenberg writes and translates fiction and poetry. Stints in Nanjing, Hong Kong and Taipei have led him to a job teaching Chinese literature, theatre, and language at The University of Sydney. 

 

lessons of a siesta in Quanzhou (alas not me the sleeper)

 

sometimes i must lay my bitterness to rest

like a naughty child. as when the

grandfathers bring their brollies to the school

to protect their red-kerchiefed progeny’s

progeny from the june brilliance on the lunchway back—

briefly home, nearly home— or the older womaning

girls pass idly by in para-summer, sucking cold fruit

fantasy lollies and rolling notes from their

teachers into karaoke microphones; but mostly

in the temple gardens, when the visibly ailing dame

says, yes you can run around but stay where

you can see gran and the boy, maybe four,

(your age) says so, can i go up the path?

 

is gran on the path?

 

 

you, the you who is nearly you:

a word in and from passing.

turn with care and impress her

on your furtive mind, your bricolage

of rapid parts. it’s not the path

that is fugitive, it is the things taken in

so deep and early that they are the only undiscoverable.

 

~

 

City of springs

 

this is not to say goodbye i am already gone.

departed the city of trickling springs, that bleed down

the mountain and fill the men.

 

across three roofs, the regular scarecrow casts forth his

roving pigeons; the barber is ordering marble  and

gilded frames; the child bats a shuttlecock

 

tantrum-spike-down. beneath:

leafy fictions in olive, mendacious and blossoming

like raw little sores.

 

who can avoid, in the end, the florist?

how carefully he poses the chrysanthemums

in the vase, musing about

 

the rounding of his belly but also

what he will do later to his lover.