During Shandong’s winters, when everyone turns fat with clothes and mutton, you are searched for in the markets where you are the fuss of flies in flickering light. You’re a bitter doctor, an unwelcome sunrise-lit root that was chewed on in childhood mornings. My students hated you for leaving the mouth thirsty, and though you are clever at clearing out the snot of cold, you stick like wires in the teeth, numbing words on the tongue.
