The slender maple

Eating Bitterness “…a term that roughly means to endure hardships, overcome difficulties, and forge ahead” – UC Press Blog, Feb. 27, 2019 When the king was captured and made a slave a groom for the war horses, he slept on straw When one of the horses died, he cut out the gall and hung it above his pallet. Every night for the next ten years he licked the dangling organ before sleep to remember and to dream the humiliation of his defeat In the meantime, his people worked to retake the king dom by training soldiers and fortifying weapons. One such weapon they offered to the conqueror was an empire-shattering beauty, a girl so gorgeous, it was said, that the fish, so dazzled by her reflection in the pond, forgot how to swim. It was also said that the conqueror, so intoxicated by her pulchritude built a musical staircase to set the mood by the melody lightly ascending as her nimble feet climbed to his chamber, to his bed which he then rarely left because she was in it. Ten years later when all was arranged, the servant-king rose from his pallet fortified by now the unending taste of bile, retook his kingdom from the besotted emperor who, unmoored by his splendiferous prize still would not let go of her hand as the saber ran him through Yet despite that heavy romance, it was never about the man who loved and ended with nothing. It was always about the winner who suffered and took all – all we were made to know was the profit of eating daily bitterness and the fruit that patience would bear. So if anyone ever wondered about the Chinese, it would help to know the kind of vengeance written in our bones Joanna Sit Joannaksit@gmail.com 347.248.4348