Elaine Sutton

Zhong HaiYuan's Kidney She was my first home. For thirty Years I nestled behind her broad hip. I sifted through rivers of her brown broth and strong tea. We had a quiet life, teaching young children to read. Bright yellow song birds were just returning to our village when they came for her, cold-eyed soldiers in stone uniforms, claiming she criticized the government. She was thrown into prison. For two years I had little to do. One thin morning in March she was blindfolded, led to the crumbling wall and shot. While she still breathed, I was sliced from her body, sewn into another. A bill for the bullets was sent to her family. Now I live in Hong Kong, a twenty thousand dollar hostage hiding under the General's stiff shirt. [This is written in response to an article in the Utne Reader on China's booming black market organ transplant business.]

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Issue #6, January, 1999 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.