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My Amoeba Kid-Brother

Shang Qin

translated by Steve Bradbury

After Joan Miró's "Dog Barking at the Moon"

The angry little fellow plucking at my khaki shirttail as I barrel down the stairs is my amoeba kid-brother, whose invitation I only managed to turn down after endless hemming and hawing. The kid is an absolute beast, a dog barking at the moon. The scruff of his neck says: "How come you don't wanna come up to my place? You saw the ladder, how long and narrow it is. You got a nest of your own in town, with stars?"

Weird how anyone could have a kid brother like that, "clean and dirty at the same time." Like a hand or the paw of a raccoon. I bet the underside of that paw is the spitting image of a pangolin's front foot. A guy has an amoeba kid-brother who simultaneously resembles a raccoon and a pangolin, and I throw scores of shadows on the midnight streets.