THE MOUNTAINS ARE HIGH AND THE EMPEROR IS FAR AWAY
The orange costs five mao, the Coke's one kuai.
Postcards, Little Red Book, souvenirs
of your climb up Moon Hill? You're tired. Please sit.
Eat more, eat more! Yes, every day I haul
this stuff up here to the peak -- alone, since Yao died.
I don't mind hard work. Always a farmer --
first when our family farmed the landlord's fields,
then, after Liberation, on collectives.
We didn't starve, even in hard times
with nothing to eat but sweet-potato stalks.
Later, our own plot. But when they made
us sell our vegetables on the free market,
we couldn't earn enough. No sons to help us,
and brother had died fighting in Korea,
killed by the Am-- ...fighting in Korea.
You-- you're Russian, are you? Oh. The beard.
Once, the only foreigners we saw
were Russian men. They all had beards. But now
people come from all countries to Moon Hill!
And I feed them while they enjoy the view.
Another orange? Will you sign my book?
Do you have children? How much do you make?
Bruce Tindall
Published in Texas Observer.