Yuan Changming
AUBADE: A Parallel Poem

You might have stayed up
All night, clicking at every link
To your daydream, searching
For a soulmate in the cyberspace

You might have enjoyed an early dose
Of original sin between sleep and wake
Before packing up all your seasonal greetings
With your luggage to catch the first plane

Or sitting up in meditation
With every sensory cell
Widely open to receive
Blue dews from nirvana

But you did not. Rather, you have just
Had another long fit of insomnia and
Now in this antlike moment, you are
Imagining a lucky morning glow

That is darting along the horizon

Yuan Changming, eight-time Pushcart nominee and author of five chapbooks (including Kinship and The Origin of Letters [2015]), is the most widely published Mandarin-speaking poetry author who writes in English. Growing up in a remote Chinese village, Yuan started to learn English at 19 and published monographs on translation before moving to Canada. With a PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver, and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry,  BestNewPoemsOnline, Cincinnati Review, Threepenny Review and 1089 other journals across 37 countries.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #13.