tacked her up,

listening as Leong grumbled,

as the king filled in the spaces

in the conversation,

Yang Du slowly working out

that the king was trying

to distract Leong.

When the horses were ready,

Yang Du led Fenfei into the courtyard.

The king helped Leong mount.

“Let us know if the pain gets worse,

if you need to ride double.”

“Worse! Impossible!”

The king turned to bow to Yang Du.

“Thank you for your help.”

Then the king mounted up,

the four men rode away,

and Yang Du went inside

to shovel more horse shit

and rehearse the story

he would one day tell his grandma.

BOWL

The woman who worked willow and water

in bold black brushstrokes

on the bowl’s thin shell

never went more than a day’s walk

from the terraced hills

where she was born.

The cook whose night-duty wages paid

the doctor’s fees for his son

layered noodles in the bowl,

added chopped spring onion,

fragrant slices of ginger duck,

a spoon of sesame sauce.

Hana, who’d left the wide grasslands

for a walled palace in a walled city,

placed the painted porcelain bowl

beside the inkstone on the desk.

King Xau, her husband, turned,

laid his hand gently on hers.

Xau set aside grain-tax reports,

the stack of unanswered letters

to share supper’s tangy sweetness

with Hana and his guard;

managed, after repeated attempts,

to make the two of them laugh.

Next morning, scrubbing dishes,

one of the kitchen staff paused,

lifted the bowl to the light,

looked at line and leaf,

how the willow was drawn

in air as much as brushstroke.

LANTERN FESTIVAL

Bustle, noise, the last night

of the New Year celebrations,

the streets of Lipoh crowded

with revelers, dragon dancers,

people selling sweet dumplings,

children running every which way,

a sea of scarlet lanterns—

small, large, plain, decorated,

riddles painted on their sides.

Prince Keng, thirteen,

followed his father, King Xau,

up the steep stairs of the city wall,

Keng double-checking his pockets

for the little red envelopes

as he climbed.

This the first time

that his father had asked Keng

to join him Walking-the-Wall,

a ceremony his father had added

fifteen years ago today.

Only their guards with them

as they climbed up and up,

the noise and the crowds dropping away,

the lanterns merging into a red carpet.

At the top,

Keng glanced down the far side

at the shiny dark of the moat,

the full moon trembling

in the water.

No lanterns up here,

but men lining the stone ramparts.

King Xau bowed very deeply

to the first man,

a man who leaned on a stick,

whose eyes shone in the moonlight

as Keng’s father bowed.

Keng bowed in turn,

gave the man a red envelope.

His father bowed to the second man,

an old man, nearly bald,

with a beard that straggled down

to his thin waist.

Keng bowed, gave him an envelope,

followed his father to the next man.

He knew the men were veterans,