It’s crazy how much cleavage the concubines
on the hot, new Hong Kong soap are showing.
My mother hates it, but what’s not to love:
gorgeous women of whatever century
Imperial China sporting dragonfly
patterns on silk while they brush their hair—
their transfer of bedroom politics into
the Let’s-Play-Dirty-scheme-in-couture-
take-over-the-mainland-eat-up-our-husbands-
and-their-wives all in one episode.
And if life is made of episodes,
then what about the one when my friend
tells me that I was a concubine in a past life?
I’m sure I was at the top of the food chain,
racking up bills, bills, bills
on a powerful man’s credit card,
forming alliances with the right women,
only to knock one out each week,
clawing my way to the top, and dethroning him.
And with this word, concubine,
I think of my father, born to a concubine—
not a royal one, more like a second wife
to a grandfather I’ve only met once.
At six, I ask Dad why he has a half-brother
and half-sister. Mom interrupts, telling me
my grandparents divorced early. I don’t believe her.
At nine, Dad is driving us from Allentown
to New York—what’s the emperor doing
in Flushing? It’s Chinese New Year,
and for once, we’re celebrating
with my Dad’s side, where in the restaurant,
we sit the farthest away from my grandfather,
who three-quarters of the way into dinner,
gives me a red envelope.
On the drive home, Mom opens my envelope:
“Dorothy got $50.” “That’s not bad,” Dad says.
“Her cousins got $700.” He keeps driving.
I never see this grandfather again.
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