Lu Xun, your hands
By Eileen Chong
Published 1 January 2021
"But as you look up and inhale the intoxicating smoke from your tobacco, can you spare a thought for those scrambling to find a way out of this nest of scorpions?"
- Xu Guangping, in her first letter to Lu Xun, 1925
Lu Xun, your hands
that you clasp behind your back,
across the black silk
of your scholar's dress. My eyes trace the length
of your fingers encircling your wrist. Tonight,
Lu Xun, your hands will drag
their heavy, eloquent path across
my milk-white skin. Your mouth will cease
to form words like liberty, ideology,
and compassion but will instead silently
enclose the peach blossoms
of my breasts
Lu Xun, your hands are the instruments
through which you conduct
your desires. In the morning, your fingers are pale
and controlled, your brush hovers
then descends upon the undulating sheets
of rice paper. My eyes follow only
each stroke. Your thoughts unfold before me, beginning
at the moss-green rocks. They linger
in the shade of the toothpick pavilion, beneath
its heavy jade tiles. They form a blood-red,
half-moon bridge
across the rush of river
fed by the waterfall whose origin lies
in the death-grey mountains. Lu Xun,
your hands warm the wood of the pipe
that I fill. My fingers, deft like birds
in flight, strike a match-soldier. Provoked,
it flares orange and ash. Dragon,
you exhale whole curlicues of cloud. Words
slumbering in my mind's recesses
now go up in smoke. They too know
that I am in heaven, Lu Xun,
for your hands
First published in Meanjin Volume 69 Issue 1 (Feb 2010)