Monkey King
Monkey King and Kuan Yin reside on the altar,
separated by a porcelain
vase. Grandma is afraid
Monkey King is so lively he’ll annoy
the Goddess of Mercy. She’s placed the bronze
ring around his head, casting a spell
to tighten it whenever he mouths off.
Grandma took me to see Monkey King
at the old World Theater when I was three.
Every day she dressed for work
at the garment shop in her home-sewn
double-knit. I don't feel like working.
We arrived at the theater at noon
and didn’t go home until the stores closed,
having seen Monkey King five times.
In the shabby movie house, fairy people
changed into giant bananas when it snowed,
shaking, It’s so cold, it’s so cold.
The world was big.
Heaven shook. Monkey King could travel
180,000 miles a somersault. In Grandma’s dialect
he is Sin Unh Kung. King of the Monkeys,
born from stone on the mountain of fruit
and flowers. Grandma went to find him
when she was a little girl. Her mother was dying
of a high fever, and she asked a wise woman
for prayers and medicine. Monkey King
was asleep in a teacup, curled up,
a piece of jade.
The woman said, Blow on the stone
and wake him. Grandma begged the shivering
jade to stop her mother’s fever. That night,
her mother stumbled out from her bedchamber
screaming. A man-sized monkey in the garden
waved an iron bar at a blue demon with buck
teeth. She wailed, damp with sweat.
The fever broke. She couldn’t have imagined him.
It was Monkey King in the yard fighting
the demon, her fever.
Priscilla Lee
I remember this particular one from when I was five. Tai Yick, my favorite
store for ceramic arts still had them!
Click this link for information about Sun Wukong from Wikipedia