Cruel Children Poem by Yang Lian

Children dance in a circle around a drop of the mother's blood Their snowy white arms are born to hit Weary eyes all around First tooth planted in a pink field As a low-hanging walnut is cracked They watch the mother's twitching face smile Smiling splashing water in the sky Bending on black nights inlaid with no sleep When children do not sleep the world must also be awake Wild skiing on long scratches Listening intently for the newest command River more transparent weeping more visible Hostility flows increasingly like unformed flesh A bloodstained lipstick cannot be washed clean Children dancing With mothers worn on their feet Like favourite toys to be wilfully destroyed Like tasty hands untiringly dragged into the future When they use deathly cruel silence to frighten the sun Angels and green flies join hands to clap A bean is familiar with bolting the last door