I’m happy to know your feelings
are completely mediocre,
safely nestled right between
caring too much and not at all.
“Irregardless” of your blank mind,
I enjoy having opinions.
Sometimes I “overexaggerate,”
but it’s better than your lukewarm.
Remember that school trip
out west?
no alcohol,
no drugs,
gender separated hotel rooms?
I watched our mentor,
as I always did?
Well,
he checked your luggage first
in the flowered bag.
I remembered
your calorie journal
and your therapy book
and your secrets that you’d hidden
in your
too
big
jeans.
I hoped he wouldn’t see
those dark things.
I hoped he would skim a
layer of underwear
and feel intrusive.
I hoped and prayed
he hadn’t noticed your bones,
or your limp hanging skin,
or your unreasonable habit of
eating
with
your
fingers.
I prayed this all – me!
with no sense of god.
I hoped you had packed god
somewhere
in your floral trunk.
(under all the xtra smalls)
I tried to know you had.
I hoped and prayed you had.
packed the car the night before
took everything that fit and
nothing more
it wasn’t an impulse
i’d been planning it for
a year
drove four hundred miles to my
sister’s and cried for
eight weeks
rented a single in berkeley in
a building once home to nuns and
cried for eight months
built in the 1930s with a drop-down
ironing board and murphy bed
a rose bush at the kitchen window
so beautiful it hurt
insomnia and two a.m. gazed up at
the full moon and knew i had exchanged
one bleeding wound for another
i met him in the laundry room
missing socks
then knocks on doors at night
candles absinthe pot and splendor
one night we did it in my long white dress
and red boots
and inside me he whispered
is this what you wanted
this
you mean
i thought
this moment or
this life or
this hell
i did not answer him but
yes
yes and
yes
Mama gave money to the sea gods
to protect us from turbulent seas
Awajishima tradition for the newborn
We feasted on the fruits of the sea:
abalone, squid, and oysters,
and fragrant matsutake
freshly picked
from the matsu forest of Awajishima
island birthed by deities and forefathers of Japan
Yet Papa yearned for America
Picket white fences, golden grand canyon, spaghetti and meatballs
“Lady and the Tramp”
My first movie
At Hibiya theatre in Tokyo
I still see the deep purple-red curtains
feel the soft velvet seats on the backs of my leg
I wanted a dog
Poco a prized Scottish Terrier
My fifth birthday present
from Papa’s brother
He was rich unlike us
But Poco was not so smart
and would wander out
Local police would find him
and bring him back
One day he left
and never returned
Mama said he was stolen
because he was so valuable
Oba-chan and Toto came to live with us
because Papa was in California
She said Toto was just like the dog
from “The Wizard of Oz”
Movie I did not know
Oba-chan used to work for the missionaries
she told us many stories
My favorite was
Toto would go to the butcher
carry home
a bag of deep fried croquettes
wrapped around his neck
A smart dog unlike Poco
Next time I saw America was on the TV screen
Motorcade, hazy dessert, and loud gun shot
Scary
Not at all like my first movie
John F Kennedy is dead
Papa said we are all moving to America
I assumed he meant Toto too.
But when Oba-chan and Mama took Toto
out an errand
they returned without Toto
He was nowhere in sight
They explained that Toto was too old
could not move to America
Toto was put to sleep
just like JFK
Once so bright, surreal and magical
America felt like a sacrifice
dark, harsh and lonely
The sun streams accent the pseudo-poop smears
and my eyes get restless
navigate perfect hardwood floors to the eyes of suited black men
their tongues wrestling a Nigerian accent
one complains his check bounced
each painting perched as deity
but i cannot unthink fingerpainting
the men discuss current remedies for finance
enjoying the sound of voices in the vacuum
they are paid to patrol
i fish into my pocket’s depth
grasp the only sheet of paper
and rescue it from a dusty purgatory
“Gesture swipes…erasures…awkward drawing…crude cartoon”
all the adjectives and nouns placed upon him like a crown
i can only picture a mad man
restless and impotent
swiping drawings in hopes to erasure a flaccid dick
but the pseudo-writer in me
hopes that the words used in description
are not for real but faux-real
I hope the artistic language is like gypsies speaking a cant in front of
tourists
and that performance is the creation
and the con is the selling
and those Nigerian men and this “artist” who illustrates the “unfinished
dialogue between binary oppositions”
are all just talking about cashing checks.