The street is
narrow, enough for one car to pass,
A constant annoyance
when it occurs. It accommodates
People perfectly,
stretching and contracting as the daily
Influx of shoppers
is digested into the bustle, sides
Lined with vendors,
animals, and makeshift counters
Fashioned from the
backs of three-wheel wagons.
The gravel beneath
me is worn away by feet
Bare or heavily
booted, large or bound
Like pebbles—hooves,
bicycles, wheels, or the earthquake
In Tangshan (the
year my dad was released
From Dalian, coming
home to see neighbors
Sleeping on
linen-lined steps, fearing an aftershock).
The cracks were
never filled, becoming lasting
Designs, collecting
debris like bellybuttons.
A familiar
combination of odors hits:
The smell of
over-ripe bananas and the aroma
Of smoked and
seasoned lamb meat. Then sounds collide
With scents, play
hide and seek with my senses,
The sound-smell of a
chirping finch atop fresh
Popcorn, the
sight-sound of red bean pastries
Bubbling in a pan of
grease. I stand here, numbed.
Fifty years of
Communist control, and a thousand
More of imperial
regulation, it has remained
Undisturbed, as
fingers cannot divert a stream.
We call it ziyou shichang, Freedom Market.
Where profits are
fought over, negotiations
So fluent it’s mistaken
as rehearsed dialogues,
Complete with
distinct rhythms. “Good friend, spare
A poor peasant, the
radishes are as fresh as they come.”
“But comrade, Little
Six offered me a better price.”
“The inflation was bad, I’m ruined now, here are the radishes
For thirty cents
less, you know they’re always fresher
Than Little
Six’s.” “Deal, give me a jin and a half then.”
What you don’t
realize is when that particular customer
Approached the
radish stand, thinking he is a tough
Bargainer, the jin and half was already in the bag.
And Little Six is
only a fictitious seller who
Always charges
thirty cents higher. The cunning
Of a radish seller
cannot be underestimated.
I hear the pleas of
a hundred katydids in straw
Cages hung on a
branch, tucked inside
The jacket of a
Mongolian, his hair matted with dung.
They chirp for
freedom, disappear one by one,
Doomed to starve, or
tied to strings and chased
By cats when
children lose their interest. The
latter
Is preferable: it
takes three weeks to die by starvation,
You can tell by how
the noise wanes, how the abdomen
Becomes as flat as a
mulberry leaf, in autumn.
It’s just another
dirty street, you said.
But here I stand on
old dirt once again.