The Prisoner

 by Brett Rutherford

     from Li Yü, poem 17

I have found her! As in a sad tale,
an evil fairy prevailed.
The world’s most beautiful woman
is confined to a room so narrow
two arms can almost touch
the heavy and well-planked walls.

A tiny terrace extends from it,
and there I saw her at last,
leaning at risk of a fall
over the balustrade, too high,
bare rocks below a certain death
to anyone foolish enough to jump.
All this, and on the palace grounds!

I found the door, concealed
within a grotto, and there she stood!
Food there was, and a tiny brazier,
all the best and the finest tea.
She had fine garments here,
all the jewels one could wish for,
even a small bronze Bodhisattva:

not a cell, like one
a Buddhist nun
or monk would occupy,
but a doll-house
pavilion for one.

Her rival did not intend it so,
but it was a temple to our passion.
O narrow bed! All pillows thrown aside,
she drew me quietly there. We stood,
we knelt, we melted like ingots
in the fire that purifies. I held the key
to the room in my hands. She took it.
We laughed, and planned our future.
We looked at one another, and now I knew
what a conspiracy was, and what its vows.

But as for here and now,
the bed just wide enough for one,
is also wide enough for two.