Ella Jeffery
Ella Jeffery’s poetry, reviews and essays have appeared in Meanjin, Westerly, Cordite,
the ferret population of shanghai: some anecdotal evidence
my friend says ferrets
roam the streets
they were released a long time ago
to catch rats or perhaps it was
roaches he says
now they thrive in back alleys and stairwells
the thresholds of people’s lives
he says they’re called yòu
or perhaps it’s māo yòu
and you can see them at night
on sinan lu where dozens of men
are re-cladding the houses
most mornings workers drip
like melting ice from the neocolonial eaves
hanging neon signs in english
the old tenants shuttled
to some outer orbit
i am doubtful
of most of my friend’s stories
and of this loose grip
on language: mine
and his
either way
the rats and roaches are still out there
but some nights riding
home late
I think I see white ferrets
streaming
under the gates
and into those houses
where nobody is allowed to live
Mutianyu in June
Clouds in the west
tinged the freak green of hail.
There was nobody around.
I walked for hours along the wall
and now and then I’d run
into other people in twos or threes.
We nodded at each other in our plastic
raincoats. For ten minutes
I watched a wild donkey
stand in the rain
among the trees below.
Fog pulsed through watchtowers.
Sometimes the steps
were far bigger and further
apart than I am used to.
Sometimes they were so small
and steep I lifted my whole
body on the balls of my feet
and laid my hands
on the rain-slick steps
above and pulled myself upwards,
scraping stone with my knees
and ankles and shins, bones
I thought I had outgrown.