Pey Oh – Legend of Chang’e,
The Moon Goddess
Part I: Bunny Girl
Watch out for a lovely girl with a big rabbit - Mission control to Apollo 11
She heard the crackle-pop of metal heating
like a flimsy meteor – not even a shower
of stars to show for it, like sparks from fireworks
on the darkside of the blue planet of home.
Small men trying to take a big step
always wanting to own her.
Short bursts of static, some faint
cheering, a limp piece of material left behind.
How long has banishment been?
She only knows how dust makes
different patterns in the bowl of land –
cold fingers of borrowed light.
Who are they? Girl with a rabbit.
She found it endlessly pounding
Xiwangmu’s 西王母 mortar and pestle,
from punishment or reward? She couldn’t tell
if that Queen of Life and Death had chosen
this whisker-twitch spirit of self-sacrifice,
born from immolation to be always
in service to the large shadows about it.
She’s as much a handmaiden to the Yin
as Goddess of the Moon,
they won’t find her in the burning plain –
follow the sense of cinnamon
at the back of your throat,
see her calling pale petals of roses her moonlight
touches – glimpse silver leaves of artemisia
as they flicker into the rabbit’s crucible.
She has no answers as to why it is her task
to make the Elixir of Immortality as long
as the Moon shines, constant and inconstant
at the same time.
She is that dream of separation.
She floated up into the longing, remember
all that one can never have,
absence a gorget around her throat.
Mare imbrium where their namesakes
reconnoitre and probe,
Little Jade Rabbit Yùtù 玉兔
keep talking, keep talking
before silence cloaks
again, smooth as lava glass –
its blackness painfully bright.
*note: the Rabbit in the moon was chosen to be a Divine Rabbit as he offered to jump into the fire to feed the ‘old sage’ lost in the forest.
Part II: The Ten Holy Sun Crows
Ten brothers, you roost on a forest-crowned pine.
Three-legged, you carry light in shape of crow –
black gloss of your feathers curve round the sun.
All holy brothers, you rise forbidden
with unbearable flames. Crackling pinecones tumble –
spit and hiss, smoke dark with plumes.
Three-legged princes in rebellion burn the earth,
crow disobedience, harsh cries taunt and flare
as you steal your mother Xihe’s chariot West.
Alight, the pitch flares with your planets. Arrows fly –
each fevered snuff of your light as you rage –
anger and terror become you.
No cool kiss of moon. O laughing crows,
an endless noon greets you. O you manic sons,
your mother’s tears are dried salt as they fall.
O you last lonely Sun Crow brings the dawn,
lights the bier of your nine dead brothers
where their dreams have stopped you with their darkness.
Pey Oh (she/her) is a Bath-based poet from Malaysia. Her first pamphlet, Pictograph, was published by Flarestack Poetry in 2018. Her recent work can be found in harana poetry, Butcher’s Dog, Long Poem Magazine, Abridged, Iamb, Babel Tower Noticeboard, and The Scores - A Journal of Poetry and Prose. A Legitimate Snack, Bagua was out with Broken Sleep Books in 2021. She is a Sky Arts Royal Society of Literature Poetry winner 2021. Twitter @msiagirl
Cover Artwork: evening preyers by C. V. Tibbett
C. V. Tibbett is a writer, editor, and artist living in Dogtown, Arkansas. A lover of horror, nature, and folk tales, their wide range of curiosities keeps them hungry to create. C. V. is focused fiercely on a radical reframing of modern society, pushing a new and revived return to our primal roots. Cofounder of The Circus, and creator of Arkansas zine LYME ZEST. Find them on insta @xo_cvt. Endless love to B & kitty Sasha.