Party
by Zhu Xiao Di
Everything hosts a party at home,
inviting nothing, something,
and anything.
Something shows up first,
asking if anything is coming.
Of course, everything calms him.
Knock, knock. It’s nothing.
Everything opens the door,
and nothing bounces inside.
Something pretends not to see nothing,
still waiting for anything.
Nothing hugs everything.
“Is anything coming?”
Nothing asks.
“Yes,” everything reassures him.
Surely everything is certain
that once something has arrived,
anything will soon follow.
So they all wait together.
When anything finally walks in,
nothing jumps on the door.
Anything nods coldly,
looking for something
blocked by everything, for a reason.
O boy.
Zhu Xiao Di is the author of Thirty Years in a Red House: A Memoir of Childhood and Youth in Communist China (University of Massachusetts Press; Penguin Books), six collections of essays in Chinese, and more than 180 poems published in journals in the U.S., Singapore, the U.K., Sweden, and Canada. Written in English, his historical mystery novel, Tales of Judge Dee, was later translated and published in France and China. His chapbook, Pictures Never Taken, is shortlisted for the 2026 Silent River Poetry Prize. His prose appears in Father: Famous Writers Celebrate the Bond Between Father and Child.
