Reading Ma Jian on the Farm

The Tibetan widow
Crushes bones and feeds them to vultures
In order to bring peace to the dead

The weeping Buddha dries my tears

I run barefoot through the apple orchards
A wild dog follows me

The Ceremony of Empowerment
Sways in the predator’s favour

The young girl quivers within

Two white rings hover round a black goat’s eyes
It stands on its hind legs waiting

For the woman who feeds it
To feed it

The pony is smaller than the goat
And hands me its hoof like a paw

A Chinese scholar
Loses his way in the mountains

Imagines dinosaurs in the swaying river
Then drowns

The weeping Buddha is full of my sorrows

The belly of a young girl is slit
Her insides offered to the moon

The moon turns the other cheek
It’s tired of sacrifice

Ma Jian drinks beer in a London pub
He can never go home

The weeping Buddha stops weeping

Everything’s fed up with sacrifice

—ALEXANDRA LEGGAT

(Originally published summer, 2008.)