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china poems
chinese influences
other poems
Near Yichang on the Yangtze: Entering the Locks
Our excursion boat slows,
a 15-foot junk with a beat-up
canvas canopy slides quickly
alongside us, and soon
a young woman in gray, loose-
fitting pants and a black jacket
is grabbing boiled eggs from
a basket three at a time
(more by feel than sight,
so she can take the next order)
inserting them deftly—
her wrist flexing exactly
right each time—into red
plastic bags, handing them
over the filthy water, as well as
dried fish, noodles, oranges,
mangos, beer in tall bottles—
her feet not fighting but agreeing
with the slick deck they’re alive
and moving on…
meanwhile, the man at the throttle
adjusts for speed, for distance,
keeping the bow close and
parallel to our boat, nudging it
lightly, as theirs, like a long
flat cork, pitches and dips
between heavy, humped-backed
swells, which occasionally set
the woman back on her heels,
where she props herself on
one hand behind her…
but soon she’s up again selling
until a bell on our boat rings and
we start to pick up speed
toward the lock just as she
spreads a cloth over what’s
left of the groceries (as one
covers a picnic table at the
start of rain), and disappears
under canvas.
