Lychee Express

What would the lovely Yang Guifei,

concubine to the emperor,

a Helen of China, have made

of our gleaming grocery stores,

always awash in berries, melons,

tangerines? Her passion for lychees,

rushed north by a chain of horsemen,

laid waste to a dynasty.

She must have understood,

at least upon the deadly finale,

the cost of transporting food

so fragile over so many li

for pleasure, not necessity,

while the kingdom faltered.

History wants a great beauty

to undermine a ruler

through human weakness.

And who of highest power

would deny his most-loved mistress

her longing for a flavor

available briefly, far away?

There’s something classical

about her appetite, about the chain

of sweating couriers, thirsty, fearful

of bruising the delicate fruit.

It proves how far we’ve come,

those tiny stickers with PLUs

and far-flung nations of origin

so common, we decry the waste.

The good peasants of antiquity

always ate locally, if at the cost

of variety, and under tyranny.

Neither they nor we would refuse

a bunch of ripe lychees in December.

Neither they nor we get to choose

who would eat humbly, who like an emperor.