bitterness is lavender in midwinter, roasting by the fireplace.

mugwort-laced mixtures of traditional medicine, dripping

into my mouth. reluctantly or all at once. my mother brings

shēngjiāng tea and mixes it with alfalfa honey and drains it

down her throat. i pick at her scabs and call it pseudoscience;

saying that i will not revere a paper-thin concoction of ginseng 

& hóngzǎo & goji. that i prefer powder-white pills in translucent boxes.

in the outskirts of Chinatown in my city, there is a corner-store

baring glass jars of names and prices in indecipherable neon 

orange calligraphy. in this store there are dried plants & dead

bugs & the bitterness is easy to detect. i have always avoided 

the fish heads with deflated eyes, staring with undead glances

no matter which aisle i stand. they seem to judge in incompleteness,

positioned there to watch over me at all times. i’m not sure

if they guard the store like a secret or if they scare thieves.

in this part of town both the weather and the people get colder.

the boiling medicine shrivels at the cold and heats up the air.

i am drawn to it, a frozen animal clawing towards something

that resembles fire. the fire becomes my world and i become

a termite drawn to the momentary warmth. in this frigid town

with frigid people it is hard to find heat for the winter. but my mother’s

imperfect embrace is close enough. the boiling concoctions fill

the room and i willingly inhale the bitterness. 

so be it pseudo-science. so be it bitter. all I want now is to whisper 

odes to hawthorn & lotus seed & be wrapped & interlocked 

with the roots of ginseng if they could bandage away the tradition-laced 

words that hang in my ears and stitch me back in whole.

About the Author

Rena Su is a writer from Vancouver, Canada, and the author of the chapbook Preparing Dinosaurs for Mass Extinction (ZED Press, Jun 2021). Her work has been recognized by Simon Fraser University, the City of Surrey, and the Pulitzer Center. You can find her on Twitter @RenaSuWrites