Five digits of death,
numbers of death,
more than one single death?
She, or he,
the chalk, broken into a few pieces:
no more writing language on the blackboard.
But they found their own death.
For the first time glorious death
has illuminated dog’s life.
“Man” and “People”
embraced by broken arms.
In abandoned ruins.
Is it only the large number of the dead
with its shattered language
that can strengthen the brick wall?
Under one hundred and eighty bricks
buried too shallow
are one hundred and eighty children
their glossy nails plucked out from the body.
Hui Di (pen name Xin Hui Fan) is a poet, essayist, editor and translator living in Beijing.
Miroslav Kirin is a published poet from Croatia who has written more than ten volumes of poetry, two books of short fiction, a novel and a children’s picture book. He has read and studied contemporary Chinese poetry for almost two decades. He was invited to Beijing’s Home of International Poets within the Shangyuan Art Scene in summer 2014, where he worked with Hui Di and translated several of his poems into both Croatian and English.