We went not to his apartment but to his office: two small rooms in a loft, one lined with bookshelves, the other with a desk and a single bed. He poured me some warm water and asked, Will you get into trouble for staying out? Will the teacher call your home? I said I didn’t know. He said, You don’t seem worried at all, don’t your mom and dad care what you get up to? I said it didn’t matter, tonight had been all worth it. I’m very happy today, he said, it wasn’t easy getting this book published. Not many people read poetry nowadays. He poured me more warm water and said, You should sleep, you have class tomorrow. I said I wasn’t sleepy, and asked if he could teach me to write poetry. Sure, he said, bring me whatever you’ve got and I’ll tell you what I think. I repeated, I believe each poem is a letter you write someone, to say what you otherwise couldn’t say. Without a you in mind, I wouldn’t be able to write anything. He asked who I was writing to, and I said my father. He laughed and said, I thought you were going to say a boy in class you liked. I said I found boys my age childish. He looked at me and said, Growing up too soon isn’t always a good thing. I shrugged and said I didn’t care.

The sky was brightening, and sunlight came through the little round window, illuminating the dust that slowly rose and fell through the air. The room smelled thickly of old books, reminding me of visits to the library as a kid, Dad taking me to borrow the bound Children’s Literature. Whenever Dad came into my mind, the memory would keep expanding until it had taken up the entire space. The light and scent of this room made me think he ought to be among us. My father’s name is Li Muyuan, I said, you might know him. Yin Zheng looked at me, startled. Of course, he muttered. Were you close? I asked. Yes, he said. We were classmates in college, then we chose the same research area and stayed on at that school after graduation, in the same teaching and research office. He stood to get more water, then turned back to say, He’d be thrilled if he knew you were writing poetry.

I asked many questions: What was Dad like at college? Did you often get together to read poems? I was pleased to hear he respected Dad’s talent and thought he was a very fine poet. Then he said, Tell me how you get on with your mom. I said, She was supposed to marry this guy when I was eleven, but I ran away to Beijing so they had to postpone the wedding, then the guy got cold feet. Now my mom and I live with my aunt in a crowded little house and I try not to go home too often. He said, Now I understand why you’ve grown up so quickly.