Autocracy

(after the Chinese movie Raise the Red Lantern)

On his property four houses,

one for each mistress.

Red lanterns at dusk

signify which one he'll visit.

No deception needed,

it's his world and this is a tradition.

Among the ruled, though,

the heart's ancient unruliness

as the most intelligent goes mad,

the prettiest takes a lover.

She's hanged in the tower

after the manipulative, jealous one

spreads the secret.

There's an empty house now;

a new girl, serenely attractive,

arrives from the provinces.

The master chooses and presides.

History is his story.

Maybe the sex-starved among us

envy him. Maybe the powerless,

beaten down in third-rate jobs,

dream of such dominion.

But who isn't troubled

by even the simplest union?

Four women in four houses

is a nation.

How quickly it all becomes work,

government.

We should know what he doesn't:

a mistress too long kept waiting

is electricity

before it's been discovered.

In the lanterned courtyard at dusk,

years before Mao and his march

and the terrible remedies,

the unchosen return to their houses.

Copyright World Poetry, Incorporated Jul/Aug 1996
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved