《兰溪河练习写信》

一

这条河最先教你的是水漫过锁骨时

你必须用鳃呼吸

——我没有鳃，所以每次下水

都像在预习溺亡

冬天洗菜，手指裂开

白菜在水面翻了个身

露出白肚皮

扁担吱呀，两只木桶

一桶装水，一桶装风

走一路洒一路

母亲说漏了就漏了

她不知道我在学怎么

把空桶也挑回家

浮漂沉下去那次

我钓上来一块石头，绑着

不知谁家孩子的鞋带

二

枫林桥头的石狮嘴里含着硬币

风一吹，硬币在喉咙里响

步行桥的木栏杆

把我的影子锯成一截一截

夜里灯带落进水里

鸭子划过去

水合拢

三

广州的珠江我游过两次

这里的河不教人任何事

它只管运——运沙，运船，运人

梦里我仍回兰溪

那块青石磨圆了

睡着以后

河替我保管着

一些早已不在这里的人

留下的体温

四

贝拉在地球的另一边

十二小时。十五小时

现在是六小时。她那边天亮了三次

我才把那两个字说完

电话一次四小时

我们用声音填海

填了半年，天渐渐变亮

晨星没入心中

那些祷告的话，奉差遣到了普天下

也有的沉了，或者漂着

漂着的被鱼吃了

沉了的变成了相思河床

五

有一天我要带爱妻去石码头

让她把手伸进水里

缩回来，说冷

我要握着那只手

把它捂热，或者

两只手一起冷

昨天晚上

我在微信电话里听见水声

她说——你听

窗外的雨声，生离

死别

我说像

然后我们都没再说话

我们的收信人，正等着出生

Practicing Letters on the Lanxi River

一

The first thing this river teaches you:

when the water rises past your collarbones

you must breathe with gills.

I never grew any. So every time I go under

I'm rehearsing my drowning.

Washing vegetables in winter, fingers split.

A cabbage turned over on the water

and showed its white belly.

The shoulder pole creaks. Two wooden buckets—

one holds water, one holds wind.

They spill all the way home.

Mother said, let it spill.

She didn't know I was learning how

to carry even the empty bucket back.

The time the bobber went down,

I pulled up a stone with

some child's shoelace tied to it.

二

At Fenglin Bridge, a stone lion holds a coin

in its mouth. When the wind blows,

the coin rattles in its throat.

The wooden rail of the footbridge

saws my shadow into pieces.

At night the string of lights falls into the water.

A duck cuts through.

The water closes behind it.

三

I swam the Pearl River in Guangzhou twice.

This river teaches nothing at all.

It only hauls—sand, barges, people.

In dreams I still return to Lanxi.

That blue stone, worn round.

After I fall asleep,

the river keeps for me

the body-warmth

of people long gone from here.

四

Bei La is on the other side of the earth.

Twelve hours. Fifteen hours.

Now six. Dawn has broken three times on her side

before I could finish saying those two words.

One call, four hours.

We fill the sea with our voices.

Half a year of filling. The sky slowly brightens.

The morning star sinks into the heart.

Those prayers, commissioned, went out to all the earth—

some of them sank, some drift.

The drifting ones were eaten by fish.

The sunken ones became a riverbed of longing.

五

One day I'll take my wife to the stone dock.

She'll put her hand in the water,

pull it back. Cold.

I'll take that hand

and warm it, or

let both our hands go cold together.

Last night

I heard water in the WeChat call.

She said—listen.

Rain outside her window. Parting

in life. Parting

in death.

I said, like.

Then neither of us spoke.

Our addressee

is waiting to be born.