Have You Heard the News?

by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming

Someone said to me:
Everything seems surreal
in China. Have you heard the news?

But surreal is the norm there.
Kafka couldn’t have dreamt it as well
as the people who live it.

I read that one March,
dead baby girls were found
in a Chinese river. Drifted ashore.
Some had tags on their tiny feet
bearing their dates of births, their weights,
their mothers’ names.

Yes, everything is surreal
in China. I’ve heard the news.

About the Author

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming is a Hong Kong-born writer and editor. She is a co-founder of Asian Cha and an editor of the London-based Fleeting Magazine and the academic journal, Victorian Network. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times and the Forward Prize. She currently teaches literature at Hong Kong Baptist University.