"Chongqing to Beijing" by Mea Andrews

We entered Beijing at night, eight hours spent jostling on a train, pacing down rows of seats;

hills running from us, land smoothing itself out, trees barely more than sticks artificially spaced

apart.

/

Hills in Chongqing dominate, paved but not leveled. Stairs reaching into fog like they’re

climbing into bed with heaven. Summer heat melting us into the asphalt, rain unstoppable in

winter; in Chongqing nothing happens with moderation.

/

There’s a tattoo on my arm of hills in Chinese style, dots representing trees dancing across their

tops. We met like those speckles—outside the lines.

/

We believe we’ve encountered shān méng hǎi shì, eternal love as hard and everlasting as

mountains; it’s formation unavoidable. I trace the callouses on your hands, rough mountain tops I

want to feel pressing into my skin.

/

An old woman yells at us from across the street a week before a man spits next to my shoe,

watching us walk arm in arm. We move forward tense, quiet. It’s mìngyùn, fate, like us, meant to

be, meant to be lived through.

/

There are no hills in Beijing, flat land chasing us off, sandstorms whipping faster than any fog,

clogging our pores so not even our skin can breathe.

/

We don’t talk of leaving, our legs leading us to same train station we arrived from, back to a

mountain where we can walk up and down the hills like dots, clouds settling in our lungs.

Mea Andrews is a writer from Georgia, who currently resides in Shenzhen. She has just finished her MFA from Lindenwood University and is only recently back on the publication scene. You can find her in Gordon Square Review, Rappahannock Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Potomac Review, and others. She was a 2022 Pushcart prize nominee, and has a poem currently up for Best of the Net. She has two chapbooks and poetry collections available for publication.