The
neck
of my mother’s
qí páo is too small for
me, delicate silk fists too
weak to punch its way
around my thick pipes
and clasp in a fixing
embrace. The
waist of my
grandmother’s
qí páo was too nar
row for even my twelve-
year-old paunch. By then
my gluttony for all things
sweet and forbidden had
corroded and cracked the
tiny straight teeth of its
zipper.