Ama

Kiss the hand that slaps you. Hunger is sweeter than wild
honey. You were born in the Year of the Bull, but you’re a
snow-maned horse. Every year the street dog becomes a god
for one day. When the sky is red with locusts, even the
hoppers hurl themselves into the wind. You can offer only
your lips, not your shoulders, to the bull on the edge of a
cliff. Never come home empty handed: a mustard seed,
prayer beads, a thorn... In blossom I sang koel: I sang vulture
in wildfire: to keep your eyes from becoming moon petals, I
sang stone mill and nettle. In the dark, your own dog will bite
of your calf. If you sow a pear, you won’t reap a persimmon.
When you can’t tell star from star, bolt the house and remain
silent until the crow caws. No bull wanders of to the
precipice by accident. Sleep with the thorn under your pillow:
one night you’ll need it to pluck a stinger from your horse’s
iris. Milk, drunk too much, becomes hemlock. Some hungers
have no name. Kiss the eyes of a woman who watched her
child grow cold on her lap and you’ll know what it means to
carry a falling bull in your throat. Ama’s words: fart inside a
lake. A crow perched silent on the persimmon branch is
never just a crow. Every ancestor is a bull walking out of the
wildfire. I’m speaking through a mouthful of bees.