Three poems by ChenChen Xiang Yin Translated by Qiang Meng

I Guess You Are a Firefly Girl 
	To poetry

Year of the Tiger, I catch a water-blue butterfly 
whose wings will unfold into your eyes. 
You nap on tender grass, each motion a ripple. 
You smear light all over me, help me dive 
to the sea floor and lift moonshine to the surface. 
My lapels, too, are dusted with the glow

easy to shake off. I guess you are a firefly girl— 
I’m an idler chasing trouble out of nothing.
You light a flame in my rival’s chest 
as his flickering heart. Consumed by jealousy, 
I reach out but find you already in my arms,
in a mirror between me and us. 
 
Now I see it: a home between your legs
where I come from and will return.
Like a river running backward, I’ll strangle 
the newborn sun. Let the good night continue
and darkness hang high. I’ll pluck your ripeness,
fill your cave with the warmest liquor. 

On a belated morning, I’ll open a window 
to the mist, with no singing swallow 
as soft as your belly. Aside from mothers, 
only you in this world offers the amniotic 
comfort of the heaven. Perhaps I should’ve died 
young, but I knew this without a prophecy:

We’d meet the way a tiger returns to her mountain. 





我猜你是萤火虫少女

戊寅年初，我抓住一只水色蝴蝶
留下翅膀为你做眼睛。你睡在细草之上
一举一动如涟漪。你在我身上抹满光亮
助我潜入海底，将月光浮出海面
我的衣襟上也是，可以抖落下来的
闪亮，我猜你是萤火虫少女

我时常闲来无事，无事生非。见你点燃
一团火焰，放进他胸腔，重塑他心到
灼热。见你在他身上摇曳，嫉妒到发狂
伸手却发现你在我怀中，我和你们之间
隔着的，原来是一面镜子

我看见了，看见你的双腿之间有家。我
来自那里，并且最终会回去，我要化身成
一条掉头的河流。如果我能掐死刚升的
太阳，让良宵无止，让昏黑高悬。那我
就将采摘你所有的饱满，用烈酒灌满
你温暖的洞穴

等待某个姗姗来迟的清晨，打开窗子
伸手触摸窗外的雾气和叫唤的燕雀
都没有你的肚子柔软。全世界除了
母亲，只有你，只有你，能给我身处
羊水般的舒适以及遥不可及的安宁

或许我不该生长，早该夭折。没有
神明预言过，可我就是知道
遇见你，就是放虎归山

Flying a Kite on Open Ground

When my eyes take flight to the blue 
ceiling, my vision grows clear. 
The heaven reaches a hand to fish for me, 
casting down a sturdy tire swing, 
like the stern governess who will pull me home 
through a game of tug-of-war.

Perhaps before humans emerged, birds
had appointed us as their earthly avatars. 
They came through the atmosphere 
to select me, passing down their long 
but finite life, a sharp pain into my hands.  

My kite, running out of string, reminds me
of those who failed to invent the airplane. 
They strove for intellect to return home sooner,
legs dangling, tortured like a fluttering flag. 

The swallows, dragonflies, and goldfish 
in matching colors. The upside-down horizon 
becomes a zoo in the azure crevice—
My ground expands into a collapsed wall.
Do we stand on a valley floor 
or in the abyss of a flipped sky?

The kite string, a rescue team that never gives up 
spellbinding the sufferer, cuts into my finger,
my bamboo skin wrapping hungry bones.  
It begins to climb, upward and inward—
the vortex will flay me into a newborn 
on the far shore: an indestructible bird of truth. 






放风筝在开阔地

高处的视觉逐渐清晰，当我的眼睛 
慢慢起飞，触到蔚蓝的棚顶。天空伸出手 
垂钓我，抛下结实的轮胎绳，像世界 
严厉的佣仆，通过一场拔河接我回家

也许鸟类在人类出现前，选中我们 
作为它们陆地的替身，道路穿越 
大气层将我确认，把一生的长度 
与它的有限和剧痛递到我手中

我余线不多的风筝，使我想起 
发明飞机失败的人，他们不懈争取智力 
以图尽早还乡。毫无着落的双腿 
受刑般挣扎，像半面旗帜踉踉跄跄

撞色的燕子、蜻蜓和金鱼，倒置 
穹碧与大陆，天际一隙变成两栖动物园 
站定的土地坚硬，霎时像铺开的围墙
我们所在的谷底是另一个天空的深处

线，不曾放弃对受难者施法的搜救队 
狠狠包缠我手指，我如竹的皮包骨 
开始为自己向上攀爬，向上就是向内 
漩涡始终真实，那狂风将我抽筋拔骨 
直至塑成对岸新生的、坚不可摧的真鸟

Smokestacks

The city donates orange blood to sunset—
A century-old man with incurable tuberculosis
sighs for his egret-white hair, the banners of smog. 
He suffers from the heatstroke of hellfire.
Magma swallows his dark face. Coal scattered 
like coarse lotus roots: the misaligned Stonehenge. 

Who pilots the unsung wasteland? From the north, 
Snow Country is a late-spring cruise. 
Tired of commuting, the young angels abscond 
with simple dreams. The longer one burns, 
the further he could travel. My ancestors 
sew ashes and bricks into rigid rags. To armor 

the erected elephant trunks. Those giant statues 
of gods, with a pigeon’s shape and a swan’s face, 
inspect us, as we care for the hushed chessboard
and vanishing galaxies. We bear the torment 
on the same wavelength. The Tower of Babel.
A fairytale castle. Fallen for a smokestack’s menace. 

Who pilots the unsung wasteland? The hands
of meaning—they manipulate a well’s bottom
and fabricate the rebar of ideology. The unbridled 
horns scream, as the stale geography repeats 
my body: the many bones lacking a sense of pride 
are the minutes of my cruciform self-starvation. 





烟囱

城市向夕阳输送源源不断的橙血 
世纪老人久病无医的肺痨，一声冗叹 
勾起雾帜的鹤发飘飘。他因不竭的地火 
中暑，岩浆漫灌煤黝黑皮肤的五官 
炭粗藕般凌乱，摆放狼藉的巨石阵

是谁驾驶着无边的荒原？雪国北 
像一艘春末邮轮，倦于通勤的青年天使 
携简洁的理想潜逃，烧得足够久 
就走得足够远。前辈出生先于我早年 
灰砖缝制硬褴褛，披甲给竖起的象鼻

阔物正以生命的方式检索众生，神像 
鸠形鹄面，而我们正细心照看棋盘 
微弱的声响，关心眼中锐减的星系 
我们感到同一幅度的煎熬，像巴比塔 
与天鹅堡的想象，在烟囱的真实前堕落

是谁驾驶着无边的荒原？意义之手 
操纵我驱动井底，捏造思想的钢筋 
诸事张狂的号角重复呼啸，是 
陈旧的地理重提我，欠缺骄傲的数根骨头 
均是十字形厌食的每分每秒

ChenChen XiangYin was born in Daqing, Heilongjiang province and graduated from Fudan University’s Department of Chinese. Her debut poetry collection Crystalline 37 (乐园37号) was published by Elegant People Books in 2024. 

Qiang Meng is from Changchun, China. His poems and translations have appeared in POETRY, Electric Literature, the Texas Review, Salt Hill Journal and elsewhere.

28 July 2026