Seven old men came to my door
while I made beancurd.
"Tell us your heartache," they sang,
so I spoke of my miserly grandmother,
and the landlord´s son,
who once gave me a peony.
"More, we are hungry for history," they cried,
So I spoke, and the milk in the bean-press
ran so low, it became a skin to coat
the hairless lip of the youngest.
My grandmother stormed the kitchen:
"Give us back our secrets!" she roared,
and pummelled the sages
until their eyes rolled back in their heads,
ecstatic on contact.
I bowed my face
and swallowed their vomit,
vinegar of my folly.
The eight winds blew and I was another old man,
walking the earth in eternal costume.
The curd sticks in my throat:
quench me, I am starving for secrets.
Choke me, my voice is a pebble
without beginning, no end in sight.
Some days I hold my tongue to the doorstep
and believe I can hear the kitchenware grinding.
Tell my grandmother to receive for me
another peony.
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