Garment Reading
By Woo Yin Ching
Translated by Mary M.Y. Fung

The jacket I have taken off lies idly on the bedding

Khaki, soft, giving out the smell of having been worn

The crumpled shoulders a scene of chaos, buttons

separated from buttonholes

Does this garment belong to me? Separated from me

Is it still mine?

I could hear it breathing

Gently through the sieve of time

A tiny black night is brewed in between the creases

Dissolving into a greater night after bodily warmth disperses,

Its adjoining layers a maze of folds

I too would like to lie thus, stepping back slowly into the deep narrow

Alley of childhood or youth, letting my middle-aged face sink into the soft pillow

I too need a little gap of absent-mindedness: to listen to the dust

Fall on my body, pause, and then be lightly shaken off

To feel the divested daylight gradually departing, taking with it my other self

Let the wind of an autumn tint reflect along the sliding temperature

Examine how a curled-up life struggling long to stretch out

Escapes the channel of years, to return to an infantile position

Breathing softly, I roll and twist

A slender cord of consciousness between sleep and wake

To appreciate my own glimmer amid the glimmer of lamplight

To swallow and expel my waking mood amid the ebb and flow of my dream tide

I try to draw back my departing self to this evening with soft comforting words

Then pouring these words into my ears, I answer in a daze

As an unknown hand eases my jacket over my shoulders: take care, don’t catch cold.

胡燕青：讀衣

脱下的外衣閑閑地躺落床褥上

土黄色，柔軟，透著一種穿過的氣味

肩膀塌成亂局，扣子與孔洞分開

是我的衣服嗎？脱離了我

還是我的衣服嗎？

我聽見它的呼吸

柔細地穿過時間的篩子

皺褶間醞釀出微小的黑夜

體溫散去，溶入更大的夜裏

相連的層次折疊著迷宮的空間

我也想這樣躺著，緩步回溯那又深又窄的

童年或少年的小巷，把中年的臉沉入軟枕

需要一點點失神的虛隙，聆聽塵埃

在自己身上降落，駐足，然後給蛵輕抖去

感覺脱落的白天逐漸遠離，帶著另一個自己

讓漸染秋色的風用下滑的溫度來思索

檢驗一直努力伸直的蜷曲生命

如何逸出年歲的航道，回到嬰兒的蹲坐裏

用細細的鼻息，一下一下地搓揉

揉成醒睡之間那幼幼的意識之線

在明滅的燈火中領會自身的明滅

在吞吐的夢潮裏吞吐醒著的心情

我嘗試把離去的自己領回這黃昏，柔聲說安慰的話

又把這話納人耳朵裏，模糊地答應著

讓不知屬誰的手把外衣輕輕披下：小心，別要著涼