Fan Jinghua: Nathalie

　　　　　　Nathalie
Take this as a game of implicit rules. About passion
and secrets, a way to exist and sustain by blindfolding soap bubbles and your eyes.
You can float in another mind like a jellyfish invisible in the reflection of clouds.
First, you offer her a scarlet veil of seduction, telling her she is a name only,
a name, you have decided long ago,
signifying nothing
more than the mobile fogging
of a distant train slashing the star-studded night.
Then, you look up all the definitions of a non-existent phrase
from an album of imagined
snuggles, evenings over an unknown cape, self-indulging palm trees
whose two- to five-word captions which you chew as green olives
wait to be developed
into tankas for the unnamable ones.
He is the most immediate shadow to your mind, but he always carries a cool side-glance
and you realize that surely kills like your unsureness.
So you scribble down something for erasure
and for the afternoons when your loved ones are not in sight to distract your reverie.
Then, you wish your most beloved one to leave you alone,
for the freedom of spacious intimacy with words,
and when in good humor, you’d like to be whispered
one or two spicy gags
to turn your blush to heart poundings, especially the one
about a man who cannot harden up to his too pure love.
Finally, you’ll wordlessly and sightlessly keep revising the blankness
between bedtime and dreams
and fill it with lines like these—
If you are not here as an absence, if you are not there as a presence, how could I
see a panic flight of autumn leaves fallen into my well of night
in this small town half-buried in the hilly countryside?
Dwarf trees after a light snow are simple and slow as my antennae,
while my words are postdated, but even so
if you do not read them now, I will be suffocated with internal signals.
You have warned me long ago,
it is not you who is involved so deep with others in this game,
she is also a familiar stranger of yours,
and I understand that it is your doppelganger.
Oh, I know while you are where you are, how you wish she could take your body.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Nov. 29-30, 2008


　　　　娜塔莉

就当这是一场游戏，规则是潜在的，有关激情
与秘密。这是一种生存与维持之道，
你需要蒙住肥皂泡与眼睛，漂浮
在另一个心灵中，犹如水母被云的倒影遮蔽。
首先，你为她提供一套诱惑的猩红面纱，告诉她
她不过是一个名字，而你早已决定，名字
仅仅代表着一条移动的雾气，
随着远方的火车刺插进星光点缀的夜空。
然后，你为了那个不存在的词的所有定义，埋头于一个大影集
半天之久，你一张一张翻检
那些想象的依偎、无名海岬的夕阳、自我沉迷的棕榈树，
它们的说明，只是三、五个字，你一一咀嚼，犹如青橄榄，
静静地等着你发展成短歌，寄给无法命名的人。
那个直接闪入的影子，总是侧目，令你时常感到难以捉摸，
只有一种杀伤力一贯确切。
所以你草草写下一些词句，为了抹去，也是为了
那些没有亲人在场搅扰你神游的下午。
然后，你真希望你最爱的人让给你一些与字句缠绵的宽敞，
如果心情大好，你倒是乐于听他低语一两个荤段子，令你的脸红
转成心跳，尤其是那个因为他女人太纯而硬不起来的故事。
最终，你将会抛弃语言和视觉，
修改就寝与做梦之间的空白，
用这样的句子填空：
"如果你不是这儿的缺失、如果你不是那儿的在场，我又怎能
看到秋叶的惊慌、纷落，在我黑夜的井中，
半掩埋在丘陵乡野的小镇？
小雪后的矮树，简朴、迟缓，犹如我的天线，
我的词语标注了一个很久以后的日期，暂时无法兑现，
而如果你不尽早将它们读活，我就会被内在的信号噎死。"
你早已要我相信，投身于这个游戏中的不是你，
那个她也是你熟悉的陌生人， 而我知道
她，你的分身、你的灵体。 我明白
虽说你身处你的所在，你多么希望她就是你的真身。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　2008年11月30日--12月1日