Mid-Autumn Mooncakes

It's nearly mid-autumn. I spy the tins

at the Asian grocer's - gaudy red peonies

unchanged for forty years. Of course

I buy the mooncakes with double yolks:

here in Australia, yolk or no yolk,

they cost the same. I should wait for you,

wait for the full moon, light some lanterns

and try to make out the lunar rabbit,

the Chinese fairy, but I don't. I cut

the mooncake into quarters and spoon

out the deep orange yolks, leaving

half-round cavities in the sweet

lotus paste. Eaten on their own,

the yolks are creamy, almost too salty.

A continent away, I imagine my mother

in her kitchen, slicing through shell

and briny white, remember my father scraping

the duck eggs into rice porridge. They always saved me

the yolks. My bowl, a cradle of bright congee

full of the gold of the mid-autumn moon.