Two poems

Eileen Chong

Qi Xi: A Sequence

i

Zhi-Nu undresses, and drops her robes
behind a rock on the river bank. On nights
like these, she likes to bathe in the stream.
She wades out to the middle, and though
it is shallow enough to stand, she lies back,
her hair streaming in the water, her pale face
upturned to the stars. The moon is nearly full.
She hears Chang-e singing the lazy hare awake,
she sees the curve of the mortar in the shadows.
Two dark shapes wing overhead: only magpies.

ii

He’s on his way home: the jangle of the cowbells
announces his journey. She rinses the rice grains
until the water runs clear. She bones the chicken
with a small knife, then slices the mushrooms finely.
Oil in the claypot, heated until smoking. Sweet wine
and stock. She banks the fire, and sets the claypot
over the glowing coals. Rice, chicken, mushrooms,
lid. He’s home now. She has already made the tea.
She smells it before she sees it. No one had warned her,
but she should have known. With cowherds, come cowshit.

iii

Zhi-Nu sits sewing, her thread pulling taut
across fabric. She embroiders the letters
neatly, evenly: N E S S I E, then a curved
head above waves, and below it, S A Y S
H I. She’s not sure if she believes it exists.
She’s not sure if she exists herself. Every year
the offerings shrink, and the stories change.
Men with telescopes have renamed her;
satellites are adrift in the Silver River.
She ties the end of the thread in a double knot.

iv

Her fingers are sticky with glue: she is building
seven miniature chairs, and seven side tables.
She has woven enough silk for seven bright dresses,
and sewn seven pairs of tiny shoes. Seven china
teacups are setting in the kiln. Soon it will be
seventh day of the seventh month. She prays
to herself, and her six sisters. They will not go hungry:
she spent all day roasting plates of phoenix-eye fruit.
She must remember to salt them. Eggshells
for the lamps are drying: she will paint, then crush them.

— —

Ghazal for my Grandmother II

There was no poetry in your hands, grandmother.
Your wrists were tied down at the very end, grandmother.

Once, long ago, we waited at the lights. The green man
flickered, and we crossed safely together, grandmother.

Street signs meant nothing: you never learned to read.
Yet the world kept no secrets from you, grandmother.

A woman read my palm, and told me your time was close.
A bird will come to you—it will be the spirit of your grandmother—

I mourned for forty-nine days. I lay awake, and shed
forbidden tears. You are lost to me, grandmother.

Today is the last time we celebrate your birthday.
From now on: only death anniversaries, grandmother.

Your ashes were scattered in the sea. Your soul must be free.
I’ll never hear the bright bell of your laugh again, grandmother.