Boston Harbor, Dawn as Dusk
Zhu Xiao Di
You constantly come to my dream
Interrupting my sleep—a gong rattles
In front of your Magistrate’s courtyard
Bringing cases for you, not for me, to solve
I live by Boston Harbor, thirteen hundred
Years away, fleeting over the Atlantic
Neither dressed up in embroidered brocade
Nor having the company of three wives
Yet you are beside me, blessed with your wit
We are in one, before day claims its sovereignty
I have the entire country, nay, the whole world
Hanging on my ballot, while sirens sing stealthily
O your hands within my hands, sleeves of murmur
Lumber along the wharves, soft pillow beneath my neck
The fog-darkling harbor, ask for nothing but the sunbreak
I woke up, thinking of your Magistrate, the beloved Judge Dee
Zhu Xiao Di is the author of Thirty Years in a Red House (a memoir), Tales of Judge Dee (a novel), Leisure Thoughts on Idle Books (essays in Chinese), and poems at [Alternate Route], Assignment, Blue Unicorn, E·ratio, Eunoia Review, MSU Roadrunner Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Crank and WestWard Quarterly, as well as Heathentide Orphans 2024. He contributes to Father: Famous Writers Celebrate the Bond Between Father and Child (an anthology).