“I fear
a cascade
of beard,”
she told me.
It was an
obvious
fabrication of
bad online
translation.
But the meaning
was clear:
From here
on, there
would be
no
more
kissing.
And we parted
ways in this
lonely world;
this vacuum
of love; this
black hole of
romance
that is Shantou.
I should have known
from the start.
“Do I look
fat?” she
asked,
gently gasping,
and pausing,
freezing her
eyes on my
beard,
and flinching,
then looking
straight
into mine,
holding her
finger erect
pointing at
her made up
doll face.
“No,” I said,
genuinely, “If
anyone looks
fat, it’s me,” I
said, genuinely.
“But it’s okay
for men,”
she fumbled
for words
either due
to broken
English or
a genuine
lack of things
to say, “to
be strong,”
she finally
and carefully
finished
her phrase
and swung her
head over
her right shoulder
and looked up
at the singer holding
the mic close to her
mouth, parting
her lipstick lips,
sitting but swaying
her hips, and
gently closing
and opening
her eyes to
the rhythm
of the music.
“She is a true
Chinese beauty,”
she turned back
and said, and
I agreed,
reluctantly,
but genuinely.
And that was
the end.
* A conversation with friends reminded me of this poem recently. It took me a while to locate a finished copy of it, but I finally found it.