Kexin Huang
A mooncake isn’t just a moon
as a cackle or a moon trapped
in a case or a laughter too rounded
to roll into a box or too octagonal
to be a Chinese porcelain tear
in an English-speaking museum
or too yellow to be blue at all
or too blue to be celebrated
in a Chinese supermarket in London
or a childhood as a rounded table
in the moon of nǎinai’s home
in contrast to nǎinai’s silhouette
cooking jiǎozi in the kitchen
or a sugary wheel of nǎinai’s
wheelchair in a care home when
we bring her boxes of home
during Mid-Autumn Festival
or red beans as in no soup but
copy and paste saccharine fillings
in the dough as gūgu teaches
us how to get wrapped, moulded
and baked when blood is calling
us through a landline or snowy
mooncake when we take our ice cream
out for a celebration as cold
as Chang’e’s life on the moon
or a greedy child under the moon
or what a young woman craves
when ovulating is the only reason
under a tremendous cake in the sky
we are supposed to meet our family
and make the moon
Kexin Huang won a poetry prize awarded by The Chinese Writers Association, prizes awarded by The Poetry Society and is shortlisted for The Bridport Prize. Her poems are in Modern Poetry in Translation, Magma, Poetry Wales (forthcoming) and elsewhere. Her poetry pamphlet is Unlock (Veer Books, 2023).
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