Lingering Summer Heat

Lingering Summer Heat

That night,

    when we walked through the stands at the summer festival,

I found night bracelets made of the glow sticks. I want that, Ojii-chan,

I said to you, pointing at the rainbows glowing around the kids’ wrists.

Okay, okay, just hold on a sec, you picked up some pinks and reds for me

because you’re a girl Aya, and then you put them on my wrists, snapped

the arcs with your rough and bony hands—the scarlet grew.

That night,

    after coming home, you told my mother about the days

in Manchuria for the first time: When I was trained for the suicide attack

with a sub, you poured out with downcast eyes, looking at my bracelets

slowly losing their lights—  my life was just like these, the glow sticks, which

my chief would bend with no mercy with the order to proceed, and burn out.

(Forthcoming in November "BEST NEW POETS 2011")


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