By Amanda Zhou

She comes home to find everything not lost but destroyed. To take an elixir, a bead, smaller than a button, but which sits at the throat for an eternity. Her husband, gone to boast around, again and again. Always with his arrow, he brags. Where is he now? Where is his piercing arrow, drawn with his mighty strength to come save her? The words always say, He, comes to save her. He always boasts of his wife, her- obsidian hair, cherry-pressed cheeks, pale, porcelain skin – that cracks too easily. But where is he now? To slice the dark night into half, from the sly men who jewel her. Well, where else would he be, besides indulged in the wine-infused air kissed by young girls? So her throat, too kisses the elixir. And now, oh, how he comes now— faster than the speed of his

arrow, his mighty arrow, Yet, his arrow is the one who pecks at her throat. So what can she do but leave? To a place where his arrow his mighty, bellowing arrow, won’t reach. To the moon. And she watches him string his bow again / again / again. But his mighty arrow, never reaches the moon.