Weijia Pan’s ‘Tokyo’

A new poem by Weijia Pan from the LARB Quarterly, no 49: ‘Traffic.’

By Weijia PanAugust 14, 2026

• Poetry

• LARB Lit

This poem is a preview of the LARB Quarterly, no. 49: Traffic. Become a member for more fiction, essays, criticism, poetry, and art from this issue—plus the next four issues of the Quarterly in print.

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Tokyo

In a museum, a man found a portrait that looked exactly like himself. Amazed, he took a photo, developed it in his studio, then nailed it to the wall of his study. The photo was black-and-white and small, and he forgot it among his other concerns. Years later, a fire spread from a nearby house and when the man returned home, the only thing spared was the photo. Initially thinking of tearing it up, he carried it instead to his new home—and later, abroad—protecting it in a sawdust frame so it wouldn’t yellow. Yesterday, I heard this story from a man at a bar. Visibly successful and slurring, he put his arm around me and said I also looked like the portrait. I pushed my way to the bathroom, flattered and insulted, and looked into the mirror. A little long, a little somber under the light, it was no doubt my face, but the thought of it surprised me, as if riding home in my old car and suddenly realizing it’s not mine. I’m going against traffic. I’m not even the driver.

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Featured image: Francis van Helmont, frontispiece to Alphabeti vere Naturalis Hebraici, 1667, is in the public domain. Accessed August 6, 2026. Image has been cropped.