We/They – Yuan Changming

We, we come, we see, we conquer, while

They, they never seek territorial expansion

    We eat meat with forks and knives

    They chew grass at bamboo sticks

We believe in God and obey the law

They practice Confucianism and follow their superman

    We discover nuclear energy to make great bombs

    They invented gunpowder to celebrate festivals

We punch others with hard fists

They dance around us with taichi gestures

    Our men fuck around everywhere outside our households

    Their women lay babies right in our living rooms

We colonize every city with an English syntax

They decorate each street with Chinese signboards

    We deploy aircraft carriers near their waters and coasts

    They marry girls to our princes and paupers

We enjoy setting fires and blowing winds along their long walls

They have Chinese stomachs to digest all insults and injuries

    We try every dirty way to overthrow their government

    They sell every clean artifact to help our citizens survive

We borrow money from them to build more weapons

They toil to make more money for our banks

Them

Us.

Yuan Changming, nine-time Pushcart and two-time Best of the Net nominee, published monographs on translation before moving out of China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver; credits include seven chapbooks (including Dark Phantasms [2017]), Best of Best Canadian Poetry:10th Anniv. Ed., Best New Poems Online, London Magazine, Three penny Review and 1319 across 40 countries.