until so many years went by
that he was gray-haired; so was I.
I’d lived in his country, then.
And now he’d moved to mine, so when
we met (his name was Allen now),
we mused and pondered how
from our horizons we had viewed
a war begin, a war conclude.
We were young. We were alike.
Boy in a schoolyard. Girl on a bike.
Gaijin
Aoyama Gakuin, not far away,
was where I stopped my bike that day,
as on its grounds Koichi played
and watched me. Was he afraid?
Gakuin meant school. I knew words now,
in Japanese, especially how
tomodachi was the word for “friend.” Why
did it seem wrong for us to try
for friendship? Was it just too soon?
I pedaled home that afternoon
feeling gaijin: foreign, weird,
feeling different, feeling feared.
Now
I stand beside Japanese tourists
looking down at the Arizona.
They look stricken. They bow.
Their bows are deep.
From the dark split hull below,
oil still bubbles to the surface
as if she breathes.
As if asleep.
In Hiroshima,
at the memorial there,
in front of the blackened tricycle,
I too bow. I weep.
Tomodachi
triolet
We could not be friends. Not then. Not yet.
Until the cloud dispersed and cleared,
we needed time to mend, forget.
We could not be friends. Not then. Not yet.
Till years had passed, until we met
and understood the things we’d feared,
we could not be friends. Not then. Not yet.
Until the cloud dispersed and cleared.