meditating,
cut off from
everything—
the last person
in the world
to know what’s
happened here.
Otherwise
he’d try
to find
me.
Wouldn’t he?
Can’t believe
he wouldn’t
get in touch
after all
that’s happened—
after all
the unbelievable things
that have happened.
Has he even tried?
How can I think of Dad
when Mom’s not here?
I kick myself.
She’s the one
who stayed,
after all.
IN THE RUBBLE
all I find is a ceramic rice bowl,
fired in a kiln so hot
even the flames
that ate our town
after the sea
swept through it
couldn’t destroy it.
*1 Shinji Kagawa—(b. 1989) Plays midfield for the German club Borussia Dortmund and for the Japan national team Soccer Nippon Daihyō
*2 Keisuke Honda—(b. 1986) Plays midfield or forward for the Italian club AC Milan and for the Japan national team Soccer Nippon Daihyō
*3 Refers to Second World War
*4 onigiri—riceball
*5 ojiisan—a more formal way to say “grandfather,” usually describing someone else’s
*6 mikan—Japanese tangerines
*7 senbei—rice crackers
*8 Tanabata festival—a festival celebrating the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (the stars Vega and Altair), who legend holds are separated by the Milky Way. Tanabata falls on either July 7 or August 7, depending on region. On this day, people write their wishes for the year on strips of paper and hang them on bamboo trees.
TWO WEEKS AFTER THE TSUNAMI
our school reopens
so we can graduate.*1
Strange to walk
these broken halls,
strange to sit
on the chairs we used
to tilt back
on two legs,
defying gravity,
to see if we could fly.
Notebooks, pencils, erasers,
paper, ballpoint pens
donated by the truckful.
But it’s hard to focus
with bulldozers
eating up
what’s left.
outside.
All I can do
is write down
what I’ve seen
for Mom
when she
comes back.
BASEBALL PLAYERS, MODELS, MOVIE STARS
come to cheer us up.
Laughter sounds
like a foreign language here.
Volunteers arrive
by the busload,
sleep in cars and tents,
eager to help out.
People from all over the world
put on waterproof jackets,
pants, boots, gloves,
helmets, goggles, and face masks,
walk through town
like lost snowboarders.
Side by side, foreigners and Japanese,
clear drains,
wash away mud,
haul trash,
pick through
collapsed
houses.
At the canning factory,
they shovel
octopus and salmon
squid and mackerel
into burlap bags,
carry them to the shoreline,
return the dead fish
to the sea.
The emperor and empress
fly in, too—
and a bearded man
in a sweet potato truck
wearing a long black coat
and a wide-brimmed hat,
like someone from
another world.
Keiko rushes to the door.
Who or what is that? I ask.
The rabbi smiles,
shakes my hand,
explains his attire,
passes out the food.
Some people cry with joy
at such a simple thing—
a hot meal.
Sweet potatoes!
Natsukashii…*2
I tell Keiko that
I’m happy, too,
happy for the
distraction.
Keiko nods, listening.
She doesn’t have to say it,
but I know she feels the same way.
They haven’t found
her dad yet, either.
ON GRADUATION DAY
Principal Kunihara hands out
our diplomas
in the makeshift
classroom.
Yoku ganbarimashita, he says—
you did your best—
holding the papers
between trembling hands,
bowing low to each of us.
His hands shake.
His voice shakes.
He doesn’t even try
though half the room
is full of TV crews
where half the class
should have been.
SHIN’S FAMILY
stands quietly
by my side.
Shin’s dad, mom, and grandpa
congratulate me.
I fight back tears.
Ryu’s not here.
Mom’s not here.
Ojiichan and Obaachan
are not here.
Dad’s…wherever.
Is this my
family
now?
PEOPLE TALK ABOUT
getting back
to normal.
Can we ever
be normal
again?
NOTHING IS NORMAL
when out of the blue
Old Man Sato
comes to sit by my side,
his short white hair
sticking up like quills,
his knees almost
touching mine.
He tells me how
Ojiichan and Obaachan met
at fourteen,
went to high school together,
married after
graduation,
then had my mom,
their only child.
Ojiichan lived here all his life,
proud to carry on
the family tradition
as his father had done
before him.
Old Man Sato is
a fisherman, too,
netting silver-gray mackerel.
He swallows,
brushes away a tear, tells me
he saw Ojiichan
get into his boat,
rush into the ocean
to beat the wave
just after the quake hit.
Old Man Sato says he’s sorry,
but he couldn’t bring himself
to tell me
until after graduation,
until now.
He rode into the tsunami?
Why? I ask.
It sounds so crazy.
That’s what we’ve done
for hundreds of years.
He did the right thing.
He did what any good fisherman
would have done.
In what might have been
his last moments,
he thought of the future.
The closer a tsunami gets to land,
the higher and stronger it grows.
Ojiichan wanted
to save his boat,
the one his father
had taught him
how to build
with his own
two hands.
For you, Old Man
Sato says.
For me? I ask.
If he went far enough
into the surf,
he’d escape the crash
of the waves.
Old Man Sato’s obsidian
eyes glisten.
They found
pieces of Grandpa’s boat
crushed like seashells
against the rocky
shore.
WASN’T THAT THE SAME BOAT
Mom and I rode in?
Just like the one from
Pirates of the Caribbean
at Disneyland—
when we screamed and laughed,
careened into dark tunnels,
ducked fireballs from muskets.
Wasn’t that the same boat
we rode calmly on the waves,
going farther out
to where Grandpa lowered his nets
and pulled up his silvery mackerel?
The boat’s now gone.
Ojiichan’s now gone.
That ocean—
the one I used to love—
is gone.
WHAT’S LEFT IS JUST A MEMORY
and a mass of junk—
that’s what it looks like,
covered in mud and oil.
UNTIL THE DAY
Shin sees something
peering out
from a pile
we’re clearing
near the school.
Muddy,
slimy,
not quite round—
but still
its black
and white
checks are
unmistakable…
a soccer ball.
Shin lifts it with his toes,
taps it lightly,
kicks it over to me.
Wet and soggy,
the ball bumps off his foot,
thuds toward me
on the ground.
No, I say, kick it away
with the top of my foot
as if it were an animal
that might bite.
But I can’t help noticing
the way my leg moved
as if it had a mind
of its own—
how good it felt
to touch a ball
again.
Gotta push that feeling down.
Don’t want to think about
those times
again.
DON’T NOTICE
the little boy watching us
from the auditorium window,
face pressed against the glass,
fogging it up.
Now he’s outside,
arms crossed
over his chest.
Can you teach
me how to play?
he asks.
Sorry, I say.
Not now.
He frowns, digs his toes
into the mud.
You guys are playing.
It’s not fair!
We shouldn’t be out here
playing, either,
Shin says.
But you are!
It’s one thing
to take our minds off
what’s happened—
but with so many people hurting,
having a good time
doesn’t feel right.
Just once! he begs,
pulling on my sleeve.
What if you get hurt?
The hospital doesn’t need
more patients.
I won’t get hurt! he says.
He’s got jagged black bangs
and he’s stubborn—
like Ryu.
He reminds me of myself,
too—
how tough I was
when my father went
back to New York,
and I had
to be
the man.
Ask me later, I say,
hoping he’ll
forget.
A FEW DAYS LATER
he pushes a box
toward my corner.
Here, he says,
tilting his chin up.
Open it.
I look inside,
find small oval discs,
elastic bands.
What’s this?
We made them out of tires.
He picks one up,
puts it on his leg.
Shin protectors.
I look at him sideways.
Why did you make these? I ask.
You said we’d get hurt.
Now we won’t get hurt.
Oh great, I think.
A real smart one.
Will you play with us now?
He smiles,
knowing he’s won.
My friends call me Guts, he says.
Just this once, I say.
But don’t tell anyone!
YES!
Guts high-fives me.
Come on, everyone!
he shouts.
I told you not to tell anyone!
I say.
Sorryyyy, he says,
grinning,
as he hands out the protectors
to his friends.
TATTERED BALL UNDER MY ARM,
I signal to Shin to
follow us out.
We walk up the hill
to the empty field,
send the kids jogging
in circles,
then lead
them in stretches.
The ball is almost flat
and not nearly as good
as the one I used to have.
Wonder where it
is now.
They take turns
with the mushy ball,
dribbling,
passing,
running,
shouting.
Guts kicks it hard,
whoops when it
somehow
gets off the ground.
He doesn’t know
which part of the foot
to kick with,
but it doesn’t matter.
It’s the first time
he’s smiled
in weeks.
WHEN I WAS HIS AGE,
I’d wake up every morning
at six to jog
and juggle.
Right leg,
left leg,
alternating right and left,
thighs,
head,
mixed.
I wasn’t
very good,
and everyone teased me
for trying.
They teased me, too,
because I looked
like Dad—Hafu.*3
Ojiichan said that I was “Double,”*4
not Hafu—
had the best
of both worlds.
He said
to ignore what
the mean kids said.
Teased and bullied…
don’t think that’s
the Double
he had in mind.
I kept at it anyway,
and when I juggled to twenty,
Ojiichan took me inland
to a Vegalta Sendai game
so I could see the pros play.
High up in the stands,
we cheered and waved flags,
jumping up with each goal.
I got a bright yellow T-shirt,
wore it until
it was so thin
you could see through it.
FROM THEN ON
I spent my Saturdays
practicing in the dust
and dirt
until my white socks
were brown,
until I had the ball
right where
I wanted it.
I could juggle a hundred times
straight,
could finally
try out
for the te
am.
I THOUGHT THINGS WOULD GET BETTER
once I made the team,
but they didn’t.
My teammates
never passed to me.
They stole my ball.
They spit on me
and kicked me, hard,
trying to make me
go away.
Coach Inoue told us
we were a team,
and a team
should play together.
I WAS MIDFIELDER—
in the middle,
where I’d been
all my life.
Between Mom and Dad,
Japan and America,
ocean and land.
My dream
of playing soccer
was all I had,
so I chased it
and chased it
and chased it.
No matter what happened,
I wouldn’t go away.
Dad always said
we weren’t quitters,
and I wanted
to be like him.
Even the forward,
Taro Nishi—
who teased me the most—
had to get over it.
After all,
he needed my assists
to score.
SOME FAMOUS JAPANESE PLAYERS
played for foreign teams,
Dad said.
If you speak English,
you can be like them—
try out for any soccer club
in the world.
The world
is your oyster,
Mom said,
laughing
at her own cliché.
She knew I hated
the slimy things
she sometimes
brought home
from work,
would only eat them
occasionally,
and only then
if they were kaki furai*5—
never, ever
raw.
I DIDN’T HAVE CLOSE FRIENDS—
most of my classmates
hung out at the rec center,
their thumbs dancing
over Game Boys,
heads buried in manga
thick as telephone books.
Then Shin joined the team.
After him came Ryu.
Like me,
they lived for soccer,
each for his own reasons.
Shin was weak
from a childhood illness
and wanted to be strong.
He played defense
and always made me laugh
with his jokes.
He never gave up
even when his legs
wobbled.
Goalkeeper Ryu
was tall as a giant,
though he wanted
to be smaller
to fit in at school.
He was fast and fearless,
could send the ball