Century Plant
that’s how people call them
mistakenly, but actually, the
flowers
of agave bloom once
in a few decades, you tell me this
morning
on our daily
call,
as you over hear the night
news
on Fukushima: people
are wearing masks, kids are
staying
inside to avoid radiation—
outside
my window, I see neighbors
walking
in the rain with
no
umbrella. This can’t happen in
Japan
today, like back in
1945,
in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or
the
Marshal Island, in 1954,
when
the rain scattered radiogens
randomly.
Tell me more
about those flowers, I urge you, trying
to
change the subject. Well,
they bloom only once and die soon
after.
Doesn’t it sound pitiably
beautiful? I pause, and imagine
the buds
slowly
opening willfully,
smudge their color in the air quietly—
but
no, my mind is still in
Fukushima, where people are
intimidated
by minute seeds, that strike
roots
deep in the tissues and sprout out
quietly,
decades later.
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