The Whistle

by Xue Di

translated by Hil Anderson and Forrest Gander

I don’t remember that whistle.

Birch bark ripped away by sweaty hands.
Broken from its mother’s bones,
an infant’s body is luminescent with blood.
Life, whistling a song both spontaneous and
unendurable, leads us into two rows of gnashing teeth.

I don’t remember that whistle.

Something larger than life tears it
into bloody ribbons while it hangs naked
from the cliff face, batting its eyes in the wind.
The song is always a half step behind.
Beacon lights flicker across the water.

I don’t remember that whistle.

I’m soaked beneath the swarming gulls,
chewing on the dark taste of my life.
And then my four limbs open gracefully —
long, thin, circling blades.

THE WHISTLE

Who is blowing that “whistle?”  Fate?  The distance between our birth and death?  A stranger or God?  We all know that in sports, when a whistle starts blowing, the runners start competing.  In this poem, the poet imagines that
the force is blowing a whistle, and the poet’s life starts falling apart.  Solitude, suffering and distant death is like a windmill, spinning in the wing.