Crossing Half of China to Sleep with You

I love poems. I’m sharing one of my favorite Chinese poems with you today, in both English and Chinese. Enjoy.

Crossing Half of China to Sleep with You

— Written by Yu Xiuhua, originally translated by Ming Di and edited by me

To sleep with you or to be slept with, what’s the difference if there’s any?

Two bodies collide – the force, the flower pushed open by the force

The spring mirage in the flowering – nothing more than this

And this we mistake as life restarting.

Across China, things are happening:

Volcanoes erupting, rivers running dry

Political prisoners and displaced workers forgotten

Elk deer and red-crowned cranes shot

I cross the hail of bullets to sleep with you

I press many nights into one morning to sleep with you

I run across many of me and many of me run into one to sleep with you

Yet I can be misled by butterflies of course

And mistake praise as spring

A village like Hengdian as home. But all these

All of these are absolutely indispensable reasons that I sleep with you

(Note: Hengdian is a film studio town in China)

穿过大半个中国去睡你

— 余秀华

其实，睡你和被你睡是差不多的，无非是

两具肉体碰撞的力，无非是这力催开的花朵

无非是这花朵虚拟出的春天让我们误以为生命被重新打开

大半个中国，什么都在发生：火山在喷，河流在枯

一些不被关心的政治犯和流民

一路在枪口的麋鹿和丹顶鹤

我是穿过枪林弹雨去睡你

我是把无数的黑夜摁进一个黎明去睡你

我是无数个我奔跑成一个我去睡你

当然我也会被一些蝴蝶带入歧途

把一些赞美当成春天

把一个和横店类似的村庄当成故乡

而它们

都是我去睡你必不可少的理由