Beipei, Low Water, Winter 1985
Li Ping is peeling
a tangerine
opening it up in
one long coil
she knows the trick
mindfully
unwinding the ribbon of skin
and looping
the emptied thing
back around the idea
of itself
she clears her throat like a boatman
spits in the sand
riverbank damp
clumped like salt
in the sweaty air
in the clammy shadows
of late afternoon
our backs to grooves
carved by generations
pulling boats upstream
heavy ropes
etching lines in place
of names
they could not write
her father a general, her brother
sent down
she tells me
his joke about Lao Mao
that old faker
& the famously doctored photos
of him swimming
the muddy Yangzi
she guffaws, spits again
no one who swims in these rivers
can be sure they’ll come out alive
