hearing me. The broom closet feels
so vast without her,
without her big and fearless love.
There is no river anymore.
There is Asa. There is me.
And a big space where
Auntie should be.
THERE IS NO END TO GRIEVING
In the morning,
I turn to Auntie
and find that she is
not there.
In the afternoon,
when Asa and I come
back from school,
the closet is empty
except for our stuff.
And at night,
when I want to tell her
about my day,
there is no one
but Asa.
THE WEIGHT OF AUNTIE AND TOCHAN
“Maybe you shouldn’t be here,”
Miss Tanaka says as soon as she sees
me standing by the doorway.
Other kids turn around to watch,
but they look away as if they know,
like they know what has happened,
and what I’m feeling. I don’t say
anything as I walk slowly
between my classmates sitting
on the floor, and sit next to Sadako-chan.
“Sorry to hear about your auntie,”
she whispers. “My grandma died, too.”
The class starts. Miss Tanaka is reading
something but words enter one ear
and leave out the other.
Auntie’s bag and Tochan’s bag
sit on my lap like stones. Like rocks.
Minutes feel like weeks, and weeks
feel like years, and soon enough
the class is over and Sadako-chan whispers,
“I’m so sorry about your auntie,”
and runs out of the room—she always has
to go back to the cafeteria
where she and her family live
to look after her little brothers.
Miss Tanaka comes over and kneels
down, our eyes at the same level.
“If there’s anything I can do,
please let me know,” she says kindly.
I look away. I hoist Auntie’s bag on my
right shoulder, and Tochan’s bag on my left
and walk away from her.
THE NEWSREEL
Miss Tanaka walks ahead of us,
and the Sixth Year follows her
through the hallway
where we meet the First Year.
Asa waves at me and I wave back.
Then the Fifth Year joins us
and we reach the gym
where we are told to sit
on the floor. The curtains
are pulled; the gym becomes dark.
And suddenly, a bright rectangle
appears in front of us
and there, in front of me, are English words
and the picture of a flattened city
and people going about the streets
and American GIs on jeeps
and the Emperor walking around in his suit
and kids like us sitting in front of a shack
eating something steaming from a bowl
and it all stops. No one says a word.
“That is the news from Japan,” a man tells us.
A PROMISE
Asa, listen to me.
Take your thumb out.
This is serious.
Don’t ever tell
any of the adults that Auntie died.
You know what they do
when kids don’t have
their pa’s and ma’s?
They take the kids away
and they put them
in a really bad place
called orphanage,
and separate brothers and sisters.
I heard that sometimes
they are given away
to the Chinese.
If that happens to us,
they’ll separate us,
and we’ll never see each
other ever again.
I mean it. If men from the Japanese
Community come, hide. If they tell
you to come with them,
run as fast as you can.
You can’t trust anyone here.
I’m serious, Asa.
We have to stick together,
you hear? It’s not a game anymore.
WALKING THE STREETS OF HARBIN
Asa and I walk through the narrow labyrinthine
streets, past the onion-shaped dome and the brick-layered
houses, past the fur-clad people and Japanese men begging.
Asa stops: “Look,” and points at an old man exhaling rings
from a pipe, his thin beard so long it touches
the cobblestone street. He wrinkles his face and gives us
a toothless smile. A yellow dog scampers past us
with her tail between the legs, followed by a cat going
about her business, whatever her business is.
And for a minute, I almost think it is spring.
But winter has dug in its heels: back in our closet room,
the floor is so cold that no matter how many layers
I wear, the cold seeps through the cloth
and claws its way toward the center of my bones.
SOMETHING DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT
My joints ache
like I had gotten
in a fight the day before
and someone kicked
me real good.
My head feels
heavy, like I’m carrying
a basket of rocks.
My body feels
cold one minute,
as if someone
poured frozen water
over me, I can’t get warm.
And the next minute,
I’m burning like someone
is roasting me alive.
What is happening?
SO MUCH PAIN
I wake up in pain I wake up with pain in my stomach the bucket in the closet is already full from all that I’ve thrown up I wake up Asa I really have to go to the bathroom but I’m scared to go by myself but I don’t tell her that I tell her I always go with you I whisper as I shake her awake and Asa mumbles something and tells me to use the bathroom in the hallway No way, I’d have to clean it, and the ice chippings get all over my clothes I whisper urgently as my stomach cramps again, hard Natsu-chan, I’m really sleepy she mumbles but she slowly gets up and we hold hands as we walk through the hallway lit only by the moonlight, through the frozen piles of waste and through the light chorus of snores behind the doors and then we move outside into the yard, Asa’s fingers tracing along the brick walls, her sleeve pulled over her hand and I hold my hand over my stomach It’s so cold and her breath comes out white, and her hand shakes inside mine and she asks me Are you going to make it I’ll try I answer and concentrate on holding everything in as another pain hits me and Asa says We’re almost there; try not to go in your pants she says loudly as she tugs my hand toward the latrine—a ditch with boards laid across it like small bridges the smell acidic and putrid even frozen dizzying us and I have no time to worry about the smell—I pull down my pants as quickly as I can as I stand astride the hole Try not to fall—the ground’s completely frozen you could fall in Asa whispers but I feel so bad and my knees are shaking and I feel like I’m floating in air Hurry I’m freezing Asa whispers loudly and I just grunt and let the liquid squirt out of me, liquid that seems never to stop freezing from the moment that it comes out and when it lands in the bottom it thumps against the bottom of the ditch and I feel so sick and I don’t know what to do and I’ve seen so many deaths to know that I am sick and I am like Auntie and I’m going to die just like all the dead lying in the hole waiting for spring to come
FRAGMENTED THOUGHTS
AUNTIE’S GHOST
You lose
when you die, so you have to keep living.
Where did I hear that?
You losewhen you die, so you have to keep living.
Who said that to me?
You lose when you die, so you have to keep living.
I open my eyes
and I see Auntie standing
close to me.
You lose when you die,
she seems to whisper.
LOVE
Each time I breathe
a column of white plume
comes out. The night is
long, the minutes weigh
as heavy as thick icicles.
I am awake. I am asleep.
I don’t know what to do.
I know what I have to do.
I put my arms around Asa
and squeeze her hard.
I don’t know what I should do.
What would Auntie tell me,
if she were here? What would
Tochan say? Then I know:
when I die, who is going to take
care of her. Before I die,
I have to make sure
she will be okay after I die.
AN APOLOGY
Tochan, I can’t keep
your promise.
I’m so so sorry.
I’m sorry
I can’t keep
your promise.
THE MORNING
The morning is about
to break the dark apart.
I hear the honking of cars
and trams making
their first rounds of
picking up people going
to work. I hear
people beginning
to stir in rooms
near the closet.
I watch Asa’s face,
and I touch her cheeks
again and again.
I love you. I love you.
I’m doing this
because I want you to be taken
care of after I die. I want Asa to live.
I hear people doing
what they always do:
washing faces, waking
up, opening their doors,
eating breakfast.
I push myself out of the closet
but the floor feels watery.
I take a step, then another.
I will find a new home for her.
SLEEPING ASA
I find the kindest pair
of eyes in the crowd
standing outside of the gate
calling out for Japanese children,
a green pair of eyes
that belong to an old Russian
woman. She is in furs,
and she looks rich.
As if she’s been waiting for me.
she stands there, away
from people as if she knew
I would be here.
I take her inside.
I show her sleeping Asa.
I show that she is asleep.
That she is pretty and cute.
The Russian woman smiles.
She tells her Chinese servant to pick
up Asa. She asks, “What about
you? Come with me.”
I shake my head. She tells me
thank you. She gives me
a piece of paper with her address
and some money.
She takes the sleeping Asa away.
A weight has been lifted
off me—she is going to be okay
after I die. I have just pulled
my heart out, and I am left with the bloody
heart beating in my hand.
I WANT TO GO
My lungs hurt and I can’t think straight
and all my joints are lit with fire. I see Tochan walking
through the door and he tells me that
he wants milk, and Goat jumps happily on the frozen ground
(my head feels like someone’s hammering my skull from the inside out)
and I want milk, and I want berries, and Horse wants sugar.
(I can’t make it to the bathroom)
and Kachan walks in with Asa (and I’m so cold) and they say
that they are taking me back home. And I say that I don’t want—
(I throw up) I say I don’t want to go with them.
I have to get Asa but Auntie tells me (I’m burning up, I’m burning up)
that I don’t need to go but I want to go because I have no more heart left,
and what am I supposed to do without a heart for the rest of my life?
TOCHAN, KACHAN, AND SNOW
Tochan reaches over and touches
my cheek. His hand is as cold
as ice, like the northern plain,
like the frozen well.
He says that I am strong,
that I have been like a good chonan,
looking after Asa,
and that Kachan and he are doing good.
Now, Natsu, give me your backpack,
I can carry it for you,
and I clutch the backpack close to me. I push
his hand away.
You are a liar. You’re not with Kachan,
you can’t have died. He smiles
and says nothing as he fades away
like the dying of the blizzard,
until there is only a swirl
of outline left, then gone,
like he was never here.
SLOW THUDDING OF MY HEART
The days seem to float
away, sometimes standing
still, sometimes moving
fast. My body feels heavy,
as if I were a butterfly
pinned as a specimen
and someone pulls my arm,
they press cold metals
against my chest,
and I tell them to stop
but my mouth is frozen shut
and my body is pinned
to the floor. I want to stay here,
only if I don’t have to feel
beating, beating, closer to death.
THIS IS DEATH
If this is dying,
I am happy to die.
I am glad
I can die before
Asa.
I am glad
Asa is with someone
who can take care of her.
I am glad
she doesn’t have to watch me die.
If this is dying,
I am ready
to go.
PART SEVEN
END OF WINTER
COMING BACK TO LIFE
When I come to, someone is holding
my hand. She tells me that I got very sick,
and for a while, no one thought I would
come back. But I did. And she says
that the doctor thinks I am over the worst.
I shake my head. I look around.
I am in a strange room, not in my closet.
And I remember: Auntie died.
I got sick. I gave up Asa.
And I remember: I sold Asa.
No matter how I look at it,
I have given away my own sister.
MISS TANAKA
I go through my pack. The woman tells me
that I held on to it even when I was dying,
but she made sure no one went near it. She says
her name is Tanaka, and she is my teacher.
I look closely at her. I don’t remember her.
Then I do: yes, she is Miss Tanaka.
“When you didn’t show up to school
for three days, I got worried. I knew you were
with your sister—with your guardian dead.
I’m glad I showed up when I did, I found you
unconscious and dying,” she says and presses her hand
against my forehead. I turn away from her.
She doesn’t know what I am feeling.
She does
n’t know I killed Auntie.
She doesn’t know I sold Asa.
She doesn’t know. And I can’t tell her.
Don’t trust anyone here, Natsu.
My heart feels like someone is squeezing it.
“I wish you had told me what was going on,
I could have helped you,” she looks straight at me.
“You’re staying with me until you are better,”
and she puts her hand on my cheek,
“and once you get better, you can worry
about your sister.” And I remember:
I have the address. I can go see if the Russian
woman will give me back my Asa.
SPRING COMES WITH THE YELLOW WIND AND MAO
The Soviets packed up winter
in the pockets of their uniforms
and they rolled up kilometers
of snow into their backpacks.
They broke off the icicles
and threw them onto
the backs of their trucks
and drove off northward.
And with spring comes Mao’s soldiers
with the yellow wind from Mongolia,
walking like cats, their steps not in step,
this man walking this way, that man walking
as if he’s carrying a hoe on his back
instead of a rifle, his pants with patches
and holes. The Chinese people come
out waving their hands.
From the yellow flag with the red, blue, white,
and black of Manchuria, to show five races
in harmony, to the flag of the Rising Sun,
to the hammer and sickle, Harbin has
gone through four flags in one year.
Every time the flag changes,
Chinese people come out to celebrate.
Even the branches on the trees
are turning pale green,
and from the window, I can see
people shedding one layer at a time
as each day progresses.
I feel alone like I never have felt before.
THE RIVER OF TIME
Days seem to move fast. Slow.
I can’t tell. I close my eyes
and I am awake, and it is
a week later, or a few days later,
I don’t know. Nothing stays