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“That’s right, wiggle your toes, little one—
wiggle, wiggle.”

Yin-li thought back to her own third year:
Mother and Grandmother soaking her small feet
in warm sheep's blood mixed with herbs.

The herbs brought a sneeze,
then a laugh—
but soon the tears flowed—
her tears, Mother’s and Grandmother’s,
mingled in the basin with bleeding herbs.
Loving hands broke all but her big toes—
eight fractures—one-by-one.

“It won’t hurt as much since you are three.”
Grandmother sighed.
“We were both six. Perhaps, because you are
so young, you will not remember this day.”

Every two days for seventeen years,
Yin-li removed the bindings,
washed and soaked her throbbing lotus hooks,*
clipped nails,
re-wrapped the long, long bandages.

On her twentieth birthday,
a missionary came—
a woman—
with large black shoes, like a man’s.

Soft-voiced and kind of eyes,
the God-lady urged all to un-bind tiny feet.
Afraid—Yin-li hesitated—
watched for someone else to go first.
Then, Grandmother stepped forward.

Anguish marked the old one’s brave face
as tears flowed from fifteen pair of watchful eyes—
holy rain marking the day.

Today, Yin-li smiles at Great-granddaughter’s
dancing toes—
gazes past them to her broken
deformed
ever-painful
‘pretty feet’—
and remembers that day.

*The malformed feet from footbinding were often
referred to as “lotus hooks” because of the shape.

See Kaixin - Footbinding in China 

(Footbinding: young girls experienced broken toes
and feet wrapped with animal-blood-and-herb-
soaked bandages—causing deformity and excruciating
pain for the rest of their lives. This custom continued
for approximately one thousand years in China, emerging
in the 10th century and ending in the early 20th century.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding