In my room, Kuan Yin guards my bed.Goddess of Unmarried Women.Goddess of Fertility.Goddess of Mercy.She stands on a throne of gold-tipped lotus,holding a white horsetail dusterand metal rings to encirclethe heads of the disobedient.Her black hair flows over her white veils,and she smiles to me as her pink lotus fliesacross the sky. Sometimes she carriesan infant in her arms,but Kuan Yin is not the Virgin Mary.The child she carries is not her own. I have prayed to her since I was a childbefore I knew what prayer meant,when daily my mother slappedthe bamboo stick across my arms and legs,and my prayers became the bridge across the pain.My grandmother tells me to release my childhood,remember only that Kuan Yin plucked me offthe wobbly junk of a boat gypsyand flew me to her,dark orphan, my skin rashed and peeling. Today, walking through the streets of ChinatownI buy images of her.Sometimes pewter, sometimes bargain jade,these small comfortsI collect like tokensto buy my way across.
© Priscilla Lee. All rights reserved.