If My Mother Wants to Go to Japan: ACTUAL

 

If my mother wants to go

to Japan, I do too.

So I pencil my time away

in charcoal slashes.

So I mark my calendar with

a haystack of days.

 

She wanted to go with my father – to stand

knee-deep in rice paddies at dawn

as she waded through wheat fields

of Nebraska on their last big trip west.

 

But my father went before her,

alone, into a country not named

and not Japan.

He went on ahead to meet her,

to wait up for her.

In love, two people go through doors

together. If they love each other

they wait.

 

So my father waits.

So my father takes his long

afternoon nap.

 

If my mother wants to go to Japan,

I do too. So I buy a house in the air

and a 1,000 yen bill dusted

with pastel inks. I pay a high price

for that currency – twice what

my brother paid.

 

I eat ricecakes piled high

with tuna and cream cheese.

I remove my shoes.

I go to Japan. I take my mother

with me.