If My Mother Wants to Go to Japan: FORGERY

 

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.

 

If my mother wants

to go to Japan, I do

too. So I bring down the

suitcases. I leave them in a pile

by the stairs. Dusty boxes of

memories are waiting for us.

 

I eat ricecakes piled high

with tuna and cream cheese.

I remove my shoes.

I go to Japan. I take my mother

with me.

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.

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University of California, Berkeley. "Slap the Jap with Iron Scrap." Calisphere: A World of Primary Sources and More. 2 November 2008. < http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft5q2nb38w/>.

Woodbury, Chuck. "Burma Shave: The Verse by the Side of the Road." 2004. Out West: The Newspaper that Roams. 2 November 2008. < http://www.outwestnewspaper.com/burmashave.html>.