C A O S H U Y I N G
____________________________THE MAGIC CUBE
Translated by Caroline Crumpacker and the Author
“I'm playing the magic cube!”
She separates its red feet
from its blue hands.
Its chilly black skeleton
rising into a square black face.
Television. The power out.
Lack of travel. Lack of ocean.
A ribbon-fish doll stares at the bed.
Her mother and father, heads bent,
wondering if the sheets can stand another bed-wetting.
Standard Chinese. A sentence learned.
An inch gained. 4 feet tall.
Carbohydrate surplus. Calcium deficiency.
She can't run. Her ankles heavy.
The bullies pull her braids.
She fights back in secret with candy.
The smiling candy devours her.
Tooth by tooth, bone by bone.
Thirteen years later, another body
in the magic cube.
Squares the color of her days.
Six dissonant sides for her next six years
growing in the earth of her home, back to the sky.
The playground staring at her blankly.
“Water! Water!” she crawls out
of the earth, dirt around her mouth.
Dreaming of water on a garden
of arms and legs. Chest to the front, bottom to…
Her parents, heads bent,
clawing the earth.
Their pile of clay offspring.
Their pile of clay PHDs.
None of it real.
Her spirit mired in the clay.
Red feet. Blue hands.
She digs herself out
with clay in her mouth.
The magic cube corporation dissolves.
An autumn wind blows away spring.
The magic cube scatters into small days
perched on birthday cakes
asleep with their candles.
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