Mid-Autumn Mooncakes
By Eileen Chong
Published 9 November 2023
It's nearly mid-autumn. I spy the tins
at the Asian grocer's - gaudy red peonies
unchanged for forty years. Of course
I buy the mooncakes with double yolks:
here in Australia, yolk or no yolk,
they cost the same. I should wait for you,
wait for the full moon, light some lanterns
and try to make out the lunar rabbit,
the Chinese fairy, but I don't. I cut
the mooncake into quarters and spoon
out the deep orange yolks, leaving
half-round cavities in the sweet
lotus paste. Eaten on their own,
the yolks are creamy, almost too salty.
A continent away, I imagine my mother
in her kitchen, slicing through shell
and briny white, remember my father scraping
the duck eggs into rice porridge. They always saved me
the yolks. My bowl, a cradle of bright congee
full of the gold of the mid-autumn moon.