WHITE SNAKE SAYS By Hsu Hui-chih

When you shed your skin

Coil around me

That I might feel your pain

The insane joy it holds

So tender and pliant

Love, it need not be inserted

I will smear your body

With saliva

On this scared night

The saliva I vigorously spit

Will serve as your shiny new skin

Little Green, later we’ll return to the mountains

To cultivate love and lust

Sigh with wonder as we look at each other

Feel that insane joy as we touch

Let Fa Hai keep reading his sutras

Let cowardly Hsu Hsien be

imprisoned under Thunder Peak Pagoda forever

Translated from the Chinese by John J.S. Balcom