My grandma was lying in bed
She was only skin and bone,
and could not even swallow rice porridge,
but she kept reminding me
to go and water the Chinese cabbages
in the corner of the garden
She was getting worse day by day,
while the cabbages she planted
grew nicer and taller

By the day of my grandma’s funeral
the Chinese cabbages in the garden
had grown to a rabbit’s height
She would be buried in the corner
where the cabbages were
I had to pull them up one by one,
holding back my tears

Wei Zheng, born in Jingzhou, Hubei province, works for China Mobile. He has written poems since the early 1990s, and his poems have been published in Poetry Journal, Poetry Exploration, Stars Poetry Journal, Poetry Monthly, Tianjin Poet, and other important poetry magazines in China.