Poetry Sample

A Young Woman’s Footbinding: T’ang Dynasty

For Thomas James

They have undergone change.  They are new moons,

crescents that have turned in on themselves.

The cherry blossoms have withered, fallen

into still pools outside my father’s house.

He calls me mei or whispers lien,

but I can no longer stand on my own in the fields.

My brothers watch me teeter in the doorway.

I was in my seventh year.  Mother came to me

with a large bowl, cut my toenails, washed my feet,

lathered me with alum and bent my toes under the sole.

She unwound a binding cloth the length of two men.

It was a road, white and endless.  Up, over, under—

paralyzed my four small toes under my weight.

She forced me to walk the length of our home.

My skin burned like fire that licked between my toes,

danced across the back of my thin calves.

I writhed in bed that evening, unable to sleep.

Mother came to my room, struck me for crying.

You must be like the lover of Li Yu,

young girls must become lily-footed women

if they are ever to take an honorable  husband.

She ordered me to walk for hours each day.                                                                                

I would hide in the garden.  She would find me.

At night, before bed, she would remove the bindings

long enough to wipe away the puss and blood which gathered.

When it dripped from them, I told her my feet were weeping.

She told me losing flesh would make them slender

as she wrapped my soles tightly back into place.

Mother cut my toenails regularly, washed the toes,

massaged them with hot and cold cloths,

and cut off my sores with her knife.

After two years, my feet became balled fists,

my skin sallow and humped like an old woman’s spine.

They bowed under my weight.  I am fortunate—

others have died of gangrene and blood poisoning.

My family leaves at sun-up while I remain.

The pain subsided with the coming of winter,

my blood slowed, frozen as the rivers.

The summer brought only an offensive stench

of my blood, my sweat, infection.

My brothers called my curled toes dead silkworms

that wound themselves in spools of thread.

Last night I dreamt the fields had grown high,

and I was too small to see beyond our garden.

This morning father set down his tea,

The first blossom will bring you a husband.

You are chaste.  I teeter toward him,

place my hands on his face. I will not weep.

Why do we make such empty sacrifices? 

Posted in: