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[The Roof Rat Review.]

Yang Mu, Lawrence R. Smith (trans), Michelle Yeh (trans). No Trace of the Gardener: Poems of Yang Mu. Yale University Press, 1998. Please face east when the Crab / shows an array of autumn hues with its many-legged obscenity / Versatile / / My metamorphosis, Louisa, is incredible / Patterns of wilderness embroidered on my clothes / swallow baby girls like nightfall / I slaughter, vomit, sob, sleep / Versatile / / Please repent with me toward the east / toward the hares of next spring / running and leaping over streams and death's bedding / Please testify with all the pleasures of your senses / Versatile

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Texts and images copyright (C) 2022 Pauline Kerschen. Layout adapted from the Single A Tumblr theme by businessbullpen. The Greater Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) has zygodactylic feet, leaving X-shaped tracks with ambiguous direction. The Pueblo and Hopi used the X symbol to mislead evil spirits. Border folklore in the early twentieth century held that a roadrunner would lead a lost traveler back to his path. In Mexico the roadrunner is known as paisano, countryman.