“The gods cannot help me. Neither the Tao
nor Zen. I am lost in a sex-soaked fog.”

There is a legend that Princess Shoujiāo
fell in love with P’anhu, a spirit dog,
who rid her father’s kingdom of his foes.

“Why does my crazed body long for union
with this dark thing? I was up on tiptoes
the first time he mounted me. The poison
of lust runs clear and strong again. I screamed

He took me as mate and I his lover.
I am a dark thing: mammoth and pregnant.”