Tug Dumbly # 74 Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny  

I griped at my life

bemoaned my fate.

A wizened Chinese

shuffled up to me
tiny sparrow

of bent bones.

One arm dragged

a trolley, the other

strained a cabbage

in a string bag.

Up to me she struggled

and beckoned me bend.

She whispered

‘take suffering

make it zhenzhi,

make zhenzhi …’

I said ‘no Chinese’.

She said ‘turn your

suffering into zhenzhi …

you say it origami …’

And it dawned.

I looked down at her

brown face cracking

like old parchment,

tooth stumps like

animal bones

in drought mud.  

And ‘Yes!’, I said ‘Yes!’

as I folded her in two

and put her away.

(She had no right being

in my bathroom anyway).