the china bowls made by one

female potter were hailed

(over a century later)

as the greatest of their age;

thirty-two men enlisted in the army,

of whom one became a captain of note.

Most returned, their names unrecorded

by history, to ordinary lives.

Curiously, when they remembered

the king kneeling over them,

each recalled a heroic figure:

young, handsome, clean, richly dressed.

Many described him as crowned,

the crowns as various as the speakers—

plain or jeweled, arched or unarched,

gold or silver or iron.

Only the guard who carried the king

back to the ship accurately remembered

the man in his arms: smelly, shaking,

stammering, crownless but a king.

DARKNESS

Xau woke in the rocking wooden cabin of the ship, his guards about him, his sheets twisted, soaked in sweat. He shook, and could not stop from shaking, could not speak, could not answer his guards. Tsung stood over him, an oil lantern swinging in his hand. Xau stared up at its small and insufficient light. The ship a scrap tossed atop vast darkness. Above the dark ocean, above the swinging lantern, unbounded night. Gan and Shuen lit more lanterns, brought them near, but it was Li who lifted Xau in his arms, who carried him out onto the rocking deck. Before them, the waxing moon and all the patterned stars hung over the sea. The darkness broken. The demon dead.

MENDING

King Xau’s strength spent,

the demon’s voice—

his brother’s borrowed voice—

a battering wave Xau drowned beneath.

Held under by the foundering weight

of men, women, children

in hopeless, helpless hundreds,

Xau lost as those he’d tried to save.

Asleep, awake. Memory, nightmare.

Against that joint assault,

his guards at first a whisper,

seeking to let him rest.

Their hushed deference shifted

to insistence, persistence.

They changed his clothes,

his bandages, his sheets.

Li sat by him, stitching a tunic,

humming as he worked.

Li’s hands, his voice snagged

Xau’s drifted thoughts.

Xau watched each stitch:

needle, thread, cloth.

The rhythm of Li’s hands,

Li’s voice held Xau afloat.

Xau watched, unquestioning,

as Li undid the work he’d done,

sewed the same seam, over and over,

to keep Xau safe.

TRAINING: SHIELD

“No more delays. No more fucking games.”

King Donal strode past Artoch,

the old man who served

as senior advisor to King Xau.

Donal did not like Artoch,

did not like men who spoke

but never fought.

No sword on Artoch’s belt,

no fire in the man’s belly.

Artoch’s voice behind him, apologetic.

Before the translator

could parrot whatever platitudes

the old man mouthed,

Donal said, “Don’t bother translating.

King Xau got back two days ago.

I’m seeing him now.”

The guards outside the room

where Xau was closeted

took Donal’s sword, his dagger,

the knife from his boot.

Within, a cool dimness.

Stone walls. High windows.

King Xau in the slanted light

from one of the windows,

swordless, shield up,

opposite a guard

with a wooden practice sword,

four more guards at a little distance.