(Spring | 春)
My Emperor’s corpse flutters his
Eyes open; lacquer-blacks desiring
Gentleness of plum leaves. Mercury
Dots his lips as he stubbornly relapses into
A brocade of a previous life’s glory. By day he
Rattled the ribcage of the imperial court; by night he
Coagulated the gardens where he promised women
The peonies’ beauty while cultivating their youth
And softness for his own. Now his body bubbles
With Death’s fungus, but who dares to challenge
The son of heaven? Beneath the moon, my pulse
Alone laments his bloodless skin.
(Summer | 夏)
My Emperor grew up tracing clouds with
Wooden swords – how he resented tales of
His mountainous wrath, yet nothing spurred
Him more than a defenseless sun. Now he shivers
Under the palace caisson, shrinking from flies
Threatening to make nests of his limbs. Once upon
A summer, we penned poetry on a roof to
Preserve the passing stars; we changed tongues
In every room out of fear. Somewhere amidst his
Parchment skin and bone, there must lie the young man
Who once gushed waterfall pride; who drew
Light from the bottom of every darkest chest.
(Autumn | 秋)
The cinnabar gates gashing the sky
Recalls my Emperor’s later years when
He uprooted trees he’d raised, in hunger
For every shade of knowledge and power that
Marks a mortal greater above all. The greatest sin
I’d committed was to gift him a scarlet record
Of life eternal, drunken with old promises that
Drenched my heart yet scarcely rocked his boat.
For my Emperor, who turned war and lust upon
Faces of the same coin, there was no winning
Without sacrifice. Why question godhood, said he,
When we’d meet in every passage in history?
(Winter | 冬)
That fateful night, my Emperor swirled the potion,
Milky like the hair misting his face, a sliver of
Empresses past. He’d read my eyes the way we’d
Pored over scripture as boys – when our words
Danced rather than slashed. By a moonlit lake,
My Emperor cuts himself open on snowflakes and
Swallows the soup of the dead; there is no more ambition
To bleed for, no yearning to mourn. He whispers
The goodbye I’d practiced over and over upon
An elderly guqin. Soon only winter shall remember
The dreams we’d set free to sun-dappled lands.
Did you know? We had our eternity, seasons ago.
Arda Mori (she/her) is a Malaysian writer. Her words are forthcoming or appear in Horns & Rattles Press, Eye To The Telescope, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter/X at @armori_ or at ardamori.wordpress.com.
