유두 (Yudu), Basin Rite for the Bing-wu Horse Year

I wash the hair in dish soap.
Not mine anymore.
Mine once.

I gathered it from the pillow,
from the tile,
from the teeth of the comb,
from the corner where the floor meets the wall
and the house keeps what the body lets go.

The basin is plastic,
cracked at the lip.
Three centuries lift off the strands and go.
I do not mourn them.
They were never mine to keep —
only to carry,
and to set down.

The water blackens.
The oils leave the way a regiment leaves a village:
unhurried,
uncounted,
saluting no one.

Below the ripples,
a seabed opens its many mouths.
It is the grave
and it is the womb
and it is the earthen bowl my grandmother set down at supper.
It takes what I give it.
It does not ask what my name was
before the orphanage.

Overhead,
the sun at noon over the Mountain.
午.
The Horse year.
Fire at the top of its ladder.
A gold seam where the part in my hair used to be.
The Mountain receives it
the way stone receives weather —
without flinching,
without thanks.

Tonight the Moon crosses from below to above.
She empties her basin into mine.

The hair is in the water.
I am in the room.
We have been separate
for some time.

빈 그릇이 가장 많이 담는다. The empty vessel holds the most.