Article: Five poems.(Pearl, Mimosa Sensitiva, The Lost Bee, Mirror, Self-portrait with Hornets)(Poem)

 
Pearl 
 
At the ceremony commemorating me, 
my family laid a gold cloth over my face, 
and I was draped in a white silk shroud 
embroidered with a dragon and phoenix. 
Despite the crude surgery, 
my high voice and soft demeanor, 
I was in possession of my soul again. 
At last, I would return a full man. 
In a pint jar, cremated with me, 
were my genitals. "Three precious." 
Father called them, poor Father-- 
strapping me to the table, knotting 
the thin chord tight, sharpening the razor-- 
looking for a way out of poverty. 
 
"When I die I will come back a cat or dog," 
I used to say to others, like me in later life, 
tending the temples, though once I'd led 
a complex imperial ...

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