It is not in a dream that we are reduced into a tremor of insects.
The thumb, before it jabs, caresses like a stray hand.
Straight for the blood blot its scuttling crab
sideways into the head, impersonal
and thus erotically wrong.
Before the terms that were drawn up
there nevertheless existed a boundary of skin.
All the frontlines are fought there; few stories
are smuggled back. No you
do not go there to release the insignificant pulse.
If you dare
confront the yellow wasp
jubilant, released, a thread of soul dissolving,
if you dare
tie around your finger the intangible scalp,
then plead the victory hum of mechanical thumb
and never dream.
No dream is warranted you for everywhere
every afternoon and midnight,
the shoes find their inhabitants
and will walk them out to flight.

Chen Gu