Gobbo Remembers His Youth

    Let me tell you about suffering

    because I was a boy cold without love

    in a large house， so dark it stifled laughs.

    I would run to my mother with stones

    only to drop them under a grim gaze

    so harsh I felt tossed in a freezing bath.

    Her words， like a cicada's shrill chirp， pierced

    the long summer afternoons of my hopes.

    I can still remember my brother's folded hands

    in the coffin， how kissing them burnt me.

    I cried uncontrollably， torched inside

    with processional fires held by shadowed monks

    cowled in their black walk through narrow streets

    of my town， terrifying my heart forever.