Bondage

Melei, once Father's lotus blossom,
hawked her trinkets to a gweilo

on his way to Forbidden City
who said he didn't have any change

in Mandarin and pidgin English
and handed her a haute couture

Sunday Times dog-eared page
about a certain McQueen xiānshēng

whose "Savage Beauty" exhibition
brought to mind pain putting on slippers,

Tung Mei, who taught her the lotus gait,
and stories by Father when she was nine

of dynastic concubines without sons
ordered to die with the emperor

while she waited for her niece
to wheel her to her brother for supper.