My neighbors’ kids grew into their JC Penney names

Sophia stitched of studies

Robert rappelled to riches

But mine, “study-rich,” is severed

Embroidered in the nylon strands of my head—

Bandaged books, clipped chains—

Pain is the wisdom in these tangled threads

Yet “culture-doctor” springs from my name too:

Battles dormant in my branches

Tinctures mute in my thorns

Soothing, she says, the wounds of revolution

That furrow time’s verdant brow

In the anesthesia of Mao

Numb is the graft of this second generation