Seven Reasons for Divorce

—Shang Dynasty (1765-1123 B.C.)

Disobedience (to in-laws)
I am the girl who wakes within an ocean,
making winter melon soup for my mother-in-law,
whose taste buds rise like thorns.
Jealousy
Your new maid returns to your room again.
I am in the kitchen, chopping pork into a guillotine
of red river. The stew smells like your boiling heart.
Disease
I am thinning, unable to hold even a hairpin up.
My body pocked. My face in the mirror
has a hole in it—why won’t it grow back?
Adultery
You had the same chance. Idiot.
How you missed my heart
in its throbbing coat, I will never know.
Stealing
Yes, I ate them. The red bean, a roiling surf
on my tongue turned to mud
only because you found out.
Bareness
Something is thundering in my body.
You can hear it in the soil, bulbs breaking out into a cathedral.
Talking too much
I still mean what I did not say.

Victoria Chang
Seven Reasons for Divorce first appeared in Born Magazine and is reprinted from the collection Circle with permission from Southern Illinois Press.