Chang'e, Weighing the Vial

Hou Yi hid it under the bed,
wrapped in cloth, further back than a wife should reach.
I raced ahead of the dust before.
Ten suns gone, one left, and the whole province
crowned him for it. Heroes ride home late,
reeking of roast pig and other men's gratitude.
Somebody has to sit up with what he buried.

I didn't reach for it out of love,
though that's the line the temple carvers choose
wife guards elixir, shields it from the thief's hand.
Half true. The other half: dwindling
from trailing his name like a second shadow, from
the vial sitting three feet off the floor,
patient as a hostage of breath stuck in its sac.

It went down fast, no ceremony to it.
No trumpet, no light splitting the roof beam.
Just my knees buckling the way a rope frays,

one strand snapping loose before the rest give,
and then my feet no longer touched the boards.

I didn't choose the moon. I chose
not to be standing there when the door opened.
Now I keep a palace built from frost,
and a rabbit that grinds root into paste
and never once looks up to ask why.
Some nights I watch him below, setting out
plates of fruit on the sill like an offering,
a man still bargaining with a woman
who can't chew forgiveness from that far up.
He thinks I'm sorry. I let him keep that.
Quiet. “Sorry.” Quiet,
instead of correcting it in front of guests.

Three thousand years of poets have called this exile.
One, drunk enough to say it plain, guessed
I might feel it nightly and not name it punishment,
just the arithmetic the fairer runs once,
alone, at a kitchen table,
and spends centuries checking her work.

Writer’s Bio

Zhang Li is a Chinese-American artist interested in history, legend, and the lives stories acquire through retelling. She is currently working on her first poetry collection, A Field Guide to Vanishing Creatures.