My father was a boatman on the Yangtze River.
One day he paid one Yuan to a nearby fisherman
to use his fishing nets that were tied to the shore at night.
It was a crane-style fishing device mounted with supports and a rope:
If bubbles or ripples emerge from the water in front of you
it means the fish is touching the small piece of bacon tied to the net,
and then you pull the fishing rope in like an old fashioned light switch.
But at night there was no light, not even a flashlight, to wake up the sleeping fish.
So instead my father brought an old hay rope from his boat,
and soaked it in waste diesel that had been used to clean the engine.
Joyfully, he lit the hay rope and turned it into a torch.
The torch opened its mouth wide and swallowed up a large patch of the black sky.
We had only wanted to wake the big fish on the mysterious river bed,
so that they would bite the godforsaken bacon tied to the net.
My father told me to hold the fishing rope and stare at the surface of river.
He grabbed the torch, fumbling his way into the cold water
and lowered the flame as close to the surface as he could, murmuring chants.
The fire grew brighter and the torch got shorter.
My father’s voice got louder and louder.
The ripples of his magic words grew wider and wider in the late autumn wind.
My mother, who was ill in bed, must have felt it.
Wei Zheng works for China Mobile. He has written poems since 1991, and his poems appear in Poetry Exploration, Poetry Journal, Stars Poetry, Poetry Monthly, and Green Breeze in China. He is also a contributor to Innisfree Poetry Journal, Third Wednesday, Whale Road Review, Apricity Magazine, Bracken Magazine, The Thing Itself, Hive Avenue, Lucky Jefferson, Fahmidan Journal, and The Rainbow Poems.