His ailing father was China but the cure

His ailing father was China but the cure
was not Confucius whom the son threw out,
along with the physician. His father died

and, in another country, when he turned
into a street limned by electric lamps,
his father stood up like a shadow on a wall.

He led the shadow home and put to bed
the dead who coughed into the porcelain throat
of the red spittoon, coughed and called to arms

his sons black-jacketed, their queues cut off,
lovers of Huxley, Gogol, Shaw and Marx,
called out in a darkening voice for light.

on Lu Xun (1881-1936)

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