Yang Gui-Fei
- Yang Gui-Fei
During the end of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 a.d.)
Surely you know I will rule your besieged kingdom in the afterlife,build the rivers so they flow into a great bath,
populate the land with plum trees, foliate the skieswith golden birds.
Once I was more than a woman, more than a gold hair-pin,more than three thousand bathing concubines.
Once the soldiers followed the scents of my long braiding curls,cording around my neck.
They followed a peeling leader who trailed me the waya buzzard steals breath from the dying.
Surely you know that on this slope, aspens and sprucewill eventually be wrapped in fencing,
honeysuckles hung with mesh, petunias drapedby a stockade fence. The tethered animals
will go round and round a tree until they strangle themselves.My body will hang without its shadow.
[End Page 88]
Victoria Chang’s third book, The Boss, was published by McSweeney’s in 2013. Her other books are Salvinia Molesta (University of Georgia Press, 2008) and Circle. Her poems have been published in many journals, including NER, and she thanks C. Dale for believing in her work and all his support throughout the years.
