THE SHALLOW HOLLOW IN THE RIVER OUTSIDE JILIN CITY

Old people here
say the sun those mornings  

came from a different sky.
Roosters  

cock-a-doodle-doed
the executions-  

half the village hemp-sown
to each other slowly  

through the shoulders
so they'd fall into the ditch 

together.
The buzzards hung in loops  

like expectant fish.
Even after fifty-five years  

bullets and soft bone chucks
ease to the surface  

for the birds to peck.
The part of us  

that plays with truth
changes like the river  

bottom: the bones
that are collected and put in a pile  

under the pines and are sooner
or later buried, again,  

and the bullets thrown into the river
to roll to the sea with the stones.