Security Detail
After Trump's May visit to Beijing.
I started this poem in May, wanting to write about the disruption Trump’s visit caused everyday people in Beijing, but I kept getting stuck. I suppose I needed the voice of a person who’s always at ground level, such as a courier, someone most affected by changes in the road. When Wang Jibing sprung to my (and mainstream) attention last month for winning the Lu Xun Literary Prize for his poetry, it supplied some inspiration. I don’t know what Wang thinks about high-level political visits—he doesn’t live in Beijing—but his line “rushing wind out of air” from the poem “People Who Rush Time” (my translation here) opened up my thinking.
Security Detail
What an intricate web they weave,
patrols in uniform and plainclothes,
across Four Seasons and Kempinski,
trying to catch danger
as others try to catch a bus, a break,
to avoid the day being ruined by
power, the ability to afford indifference.
Couriers crisscross until the blockade
with their timebombs ticking, wages
in danger. Hidden eyes watch
the wind cutting across the traversable
and the forbidden. Guards pace
as they’re told, their leaders say
rehearsed words, we wait
for the all-clear: Pretend
like we weren’t here.
