fractals
Ling Feng, trans. Jonathan Chan
my loneliness is like a straightjacket.
just as with my body, when
it is breathing.
the moonlight has turned into salt.
it is not just tears that are crystalline and translucent.
one learns to be all things to all people.
a single point opens into a hexagon
but grains of sand do not understand the theory of fractals.
there is no snow in the world.
black holes cannot cause your gaze
to fade.
reproduction is blamed on survival.
the darkness of night has a dull ache.
to survive, one can only be alone.
geometry is not a stable science.
a heart is divided into more hearts.
they are close to one another, and
have none to turn to in old age
the sea returns to plough land, and
half of the soles of my feet, taking
away my breath.
it is not just the heart that constantly changes.
the stars multiply into salt.
the Milky Way is a wound that will not heal.
Brian Zhang Yucheng, better known by the pen name Ling Feng, is a writer and doctor from China. His short stories and poems have been published in several literature journals including Youth Literature (青年文学), Beijing Literature (北京文学), Aves (小鸟文学), Hunan Literature (湖南文学) and West (西部). He has received the Zhu Ziqing Literary Award from Tsinghua University, the Future Science Fiction Masters Award for his short stories, and his screenplay, The Road Not Taken, was selected for the Outstanding Youth Film Drama Program of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Jonathan Chan is a writer, editor, and translator of poems and essays. His first collection of poems, going home (Landmark, 2022), was a finalist for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2024. His translations have appeared in Asymptote, poetry.sg, China Hands, and Journal of Practice, Research and Tangential Activities (PR&TA). More of his writing can be found at jonbcy.wordpress.com.