Fan Jinghua: The Queen of Heaven

　　　The Queen of Heaven

With a sword-like flash of her silvery hairclasp,
the Queen of Heaven cleaves an involuntary moat through the sky,
and half of her land is offered to compensate for the refractory affair:
a contraceptive failure is always a weight to bargain against the heavenly scale.
On her palm is left a numb dent, dark with blood.

This is a queendom: a single mother with seven grown-up daughters,
all immortals. Any daughter’s any impulsive love or one-night stand
is settled with cession of the mother’s land,
plus blasphemy that all the fowls carry on their wings.

You could have kept some pets, like a rabbit
or even amphibians from the order of anura, like a frog or a toad.
As for a man or a child, you may keep that fantasy,
but you should never attempt to keep him in your boudoir.
Remember your blood is blue, and your menses is mother-of-pearl.

Those constellational heroes are born red-blooded, glowing with lust;
they are on guard because they keep eyes on chances,
the eggs of their wisdom is piled on the top of a slope:
when the eggs are bloated hard, the pile will collapse quick,
but being deflated and saggy is their inbuilt fear.

No need to bind our feet or cinch our waist.
We stand knee-deep in clouds, squeezing thighs and arms
like in the mud, and don’t give a fuck about a ferry or a U-boat.
We will fly in the liquid of night from one night to another
like jellyfish, brainless, with nervous systems for light and odor.

What we can improve is our instinct to avoid danger,
and our embrace for life is for the prey.
Being slow, we need lethal toxins to sustain our own lives.
If they solidify into pearls, then you may string them together
to make a necklace or even a G-string.

The mirror walls along the boundary double our motherland,
and I will never allow them usurped for opening boutiques.
Oh, look, the rainbow is letting down a drawbridge
for an annual carnival. Girls, let’s get ready for a parade,
and we’ll catwalk to the moat for some water play.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　August 18, 2007

Note: The seventh day of the seventh month in lunar calendar (August
19, 2007) is Chinese Lover’s Day, as the folklore says that Vega
the Weaving Maiden Fairy (the youngest daughter of Her Majesty
the Queen of Heaven) and Altair the mortal oxherd would meet
for their once-in-a-year date on the bridge of magpies over the Milky
Way. The folklore says that The Queen of Heaven uses her hair clasp
to cleave a Silvery River (The Milky Way) to prevent the Oxherd from
catching up with them, and thus the two were forever separated.


　　　　　　王母如是说

银簪子当空一划，王母娘娘用一道无奈的护城河
将半壁天国留给了枯情：避孕失败也成了倾斜天秤的砝码？
可她的手心却又落下一个冰冷的凹坑，暗暗的，稍有淤血。

这是女皇的国度：一个寡妇带着七个熟女，
女儿的每次冲动都令她割让天宇，赔给一场露水情缘；
而且，所有的鸟都要传播一个永恒的骂名。

你们也可以养宠物，例如兔子，甚至是无尾类的青蛙蟾蜍，
但是男人或者孩子，可以幻想，切不可妄图密藏于闺阁；
因为你们流着蓝色的血，月月分泌珠母贝的荧光。

那些坚定成星座的英雄，都是贱民身世，泛着欲望的光；
守，便是他们永远的望，而他们的智慧之卵垒在一个滑坡的顶端：
涨满的硬，令他们难以持久，而干瘪的软是他们根深蒂固的内荏。

我们不必缠足束腰。双脚插在云中，夹紧双腿和双臂，扭动与搓揉，
无需渡船或潜艇，我们也能飞翔在液体中，游过一夜又一夜……
我们是水母，没有大脑，只有神经系统构成光与味的本能。

能强化的只有基因中撤退的速度，而拥抱激情就是拥抱猎物。
缓慢的生命需要有致命的毒素才能维系。
如果它们凝结成珠，那么将它们串成一条项链，或者丁字裤。

镜子的围墙令我们的幅员辽阔，而我不会破墙开店。
哦，看啊，彩虹的吊桥放下了，一年一度的狂欢节啊，
女儿们，我们这就排队，走猫步，去护城河戏水。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　2007年8月18日（七夕前夕）

注：农历七月初七（2007年8月19日）是中国的情人节。民间传说，织女星（王母娘娘最小的女儿）和牵牛星（凡间的放牛郎）每年都会在这一日在喜鹊搭成的桥上，跨越银河见面一次。据说，王母娘娘为了阻止牛郎追上她们，用发簪在身后划了一下，变成了银河，于是牛郎和织女就只能隔河相望。