Lantern Festival

                    In December 1937, the Japanese army invaded the Chinese
                    city Nanking. Within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians
                    and soldiers were raped, tortured, and murdered.

Some open like accordions, honoring the arrival of a newborn,
others hang still like moons,

red ones line up in a row on a metal thread over scents
of sticky rice balls smoking in soup,

round ones glow in the wind, sockets firing up
one after another.

No! I am wrong, the round ones lash in the wind:

they are human heads, gutted and plucked from bodies that were
snipping stalks of choy sum, or

excavating daikon, or stabbing fish in the river, or trimming
pork loins for evening porridge.

And they hang in a row for decoration, foreheads bumping
into each other,

glowing like a galaxy of holiday lights, honoring
the arrival of the new,

that always, always turns into the next target,
the minute it is named.

Victoria Chang
Circle
Crab Orchard Series in Poetry
Open Competition Award
Southern Illinois University Press

Copyright © 2005 by Victoria Chang.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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