Burial Ground
Sometimes I search for a place inside my body,
a curious cube of empty space deep beneath my chest:
the unopened vault of an Emperor. Poisoned, drowned,
and found himself a place where the body-snatchers and historians
had tried in vain for thousands of years to uncover.
His bronze soldiers wake up within me, crossing
the mercury rivers between my ribs, burning blue torches, battering
doom drums to tear down the wall and get out. Otherwise
it is a desolate place. A dark room somewhere in between
my feet wading in molten metal groping for his bones and fingers
bruised by the dead man’s ancient jewels. Cold and lusterless thing
hitting the bottom of my stomach with a dull sound.
My history teacher in his imperial yellow shirt called
my name in class (his voice almost drowned in the rhubarb of the bronze
soldiers) and pressed his ear to my chest.
Thirty-eight pairs of eyes silent with anticipation as he pronounced his verdict
No he said as my fingers dripped mercury into his thinning hair
This is a burial ground with the worst feng-shui. No one would lie down
inside her, not even a tyrant. Not in another thousand years.
But once there is a bedroom in place of the vault, a bedroom
complete with two pillows a wardrobe and a book upturned on the night stand.
Windows round like a ship cabin’s were waging a permanent war with the rain
outside. The weather forecast said an Autumn Typhoon is on the loose.
First an overheated spot on the Pacific, then a whirlpool of air
a swirl of red, orange, and yellow growing on my phone screen (how I imagine
a B Scan would look like with brighter color scheme)
pirouetting its way towards Canton. Walking down the streets
and the breathes of the sea permeate my pillows, drawing
the pale ghost of the Emperor lost at sea to lie down
next to me, wet footprints on the floor and throats too filled with brine to speak.
So we lay in silence until his bronze soldiers found him
and tore down our walls again.
Peihe Feng is a student from Guangzhou, China. She gardens on her balcony in her spare time.