On Falling in Love with Japan:
In Three Parts
I.
Consider the way her last summer rains fall quietly
onto your shoulder. See me, take what remains of me,
she is begging of your upturned palms while undressing
her landscape for you. Glimpse her sky blue mountains,
rounded like the curve of a thigh or the deep hollows
between your lover’s breasts. Do you hear the water cranes
calling out across the river? The wind is carrying something away.
II.
Someone kissed your mouth. Someone cupped your chin,
asked you about safety and weather on the other side
of the world. Is there a word for loss in Japanese?
Maybe it is composed of lotus and winter frost,
the latter being something similar to you when
you told someone watch this: keep this safe: this is not yours
to have.
III.
She is stealing your heart. She is rearranging her forests
and streams to better match your expectations. She is persuading
the flowers to blush a deepest red just for you,
my love, she says to you, don’t turn around .The rain has
started again somewhere you can’t see. Everything
weeps for you. After this, after not so long, you will
learn to love the storms.
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1 comment:
Your line breaks are precise and you handle progression/movement really well. I think I am most interested in the second stanza, where it manages to be beautiful in a way that doesn't seem so forced. The strangeness of the word composition has struck me each time I've read it. The words themselves don't transgress the scene, but end up working provocatively none the less (the shape of the words? their sounds? considering lotus + frost?). You slip in moments to undercut what is logical/easy in the italics at the ends of stanzas one and two. Something about "water cranes" in the mouth and interruption/shift ... and then "watch this: keep this safe: this is not yours to have" is very forward and unknown.
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