The Intrigues of the Warring States of Being
You introduced the fear of us. History tells me
jijian was a concept born out of your want of
morality and decency. Language gave birth to
new words (and cages). Suddenly we were illicit
danger and fire hazard – in our own eyes – and
I felt my ardour twist and bend in the river of
time. Here lies a misshapen reflection among
the paddy fields: I spend my youth spitting into
myself; her hands and my hands soiled dirty by
love; his hands and his hands caught shackled
by the beliefs of a paler man. This is a disease:
the land is being shaken up and slivered with
hate. We are suffocating under the weight of
fumbling cultured touch. Emperor Ai ‘broke
the sleeve’ so Dong Xian could sleep, but I am
breaking the sleeve to pass undetected through
this house, onto the streets. The day they find
out, I’ll be a ‘contagious girl’ – alien, burning
body – they want to drown.
“My god, we didn’t raise you to
be like this.” Yet bisexual Chinese princes and
their lovers made for exemplary men. (History
discards the stories of women and the poor.) I
am searching for ancestresses who might have
harboured my yearning for –
golden orchids spun from silk; the poetry in
Miss Cao’s perfume; incense lit for a dreaming
theatre girl who died a red-chamber death –
Today I sit eyeing half a peach, leftover, perched
prettily on kitchen countertop. I want to write
my own ‘Miss Sophia’s Diary’ in classical tongue
(so all my heroes and heroines roll into one).
Dragon Song in the A.M.
Shy-knuckled morning: she has sleep-eyes,
dream-eyes, almond-eyes sliced damn fine
on breakfast spread. The newspaper flutters
in your hand catching the night; you want
to read her into pagoda, into blue and white
porcelain bowl, into other-bodies, yet another
body, into Anna May Wong without her fire;
you want to weave us silken into the road.
My goddess of mercy sits denuded on your
shelf and learns how to rage, learns how to
curb her love –
and I buckle under her light,
too soft, too delicate, too damn beat. Fuck,
you want me to teach you ‘Oriental’ with the
doleful eyes; want to know what lies a dragon
ride away. Guan Yin is teaching this dragon
how to fly solo, how to fling a scaled body
(golden) of blood and ire across the table
and into the sky.
粥
give a bowl of congee to the sick girl,
go easy on her teeth – comfort bowl
steaming decongestant up morning,
window-steaming. avoid hot middles,
push gruel volcano to cool mountain
edges. enter tongue testing waters if
burn is what it wants. this is a bowl of
rice stretched infinities stretching life
when my people scarce ate, scarce
had fire in their bellies, no shoes on
their feet, my dad’s soles hardened,
thinnest grain and labourer’s ire thick
stripped zhacai and duck eggs rich
and salty are our gift to you, flavour
history for you. here, sweet red bean
for you, are your hands cold? warm
them up for you, are you faint with
hunger? no, dad, not like you, dad –
the cold sank its teeth into you, dad,
without my winter scarf and hat, boy
fraying and congee your radiator out
on old city streets, works day studies
night, lips chapped, skin chapped –
sick girl is sick in the pink with love,
laughter, sacrifice, your sacrifice and
breaking backs. god you’re so strong
serving up full-bodied congee robust
on table with beat bones, flaming body,
another flare-up, skin still chapped –
and I want so badly to snuff out the
stove where we cook because
why can’t I ladle
a man back to health?
Minying Huang is studying Spanish and Arabic at Oxford University. Her poetry has been published and/or is forthcoming in PANK, Vagabond City, Crab Fat Magazine, and Okey-Panky.