the questions.
“We can defend our land!”
and a chorus of Yes! Yes! rings out,
until we remember
there are no men left.
But I feel the weight
of the gun in Tochan’s bag
on my back. I can fight,
I know I can
just like I’ve been taught.
MORSE CODE
Auntie grips my hand harder.
“You heard the principal.
We are leaving. Don’t you let
go of my hand or Asa’s, you hear?”
And I nod. I grip Asa’s hand harder,
and grip Auntie’s hand hard,
once, twice, to let her know
I understand, a Morse code,
telling her I understand, and she grips
my hand back, once, twice,
a message received and understood.
My heart wings in the rhythm
of a scared hen, thrashing against
the henhouse when a wolf circles it outside.
THE MORNING
The sun rises. We have been walking
for many hours through the fields
on a dirt road. No one is saying
a word as we walk
weighed down by worries,
our backs bent lower
and lower with each step we take
away from home. And the sun is like
an eye in the sky, watching us.
We can’t hide anywhere.
Back home, chickens must be
waiting for us to feed them
and no one is left.
No one is home.
PEELING LAYERS LIKE ONIONS
The backpack digs into my shoulders.
I am sweating in my coat,
and when I take it off,
about to throw it on the ground
like others have done, coats and jackets
and bags and food littered behind us,
leaving behind a trail for anyone to follow.
Auntie—her face flushed like a red onion—
tells me to carry it,
because we will need it.
She tells Asa never to let go of her coat,
never to let go of my hand. Ever.
HALTING FOR A REST
Principal Ohara raises his arm and we halt.
We stop. We sigh. We drop our bodies
wherever we are, with packs still
on our backs, and close our eyes.
My feet hurt. My legs feel heavy,
like I’m dragging the weight of two logs.
Asa presses next to me and I put my arm
around her body. Auntie sits next
to Asa and opens her backpack.
“Eat,” she says, and holds out a rice ball.
I shake my head. I can’t even tell
her I’m too tired to eat, but she says
that if I don’t eat now, I won’t be
able to walk, and she pinches off
a piece with her thick wrinkly fingers
and tells me to open my mouth.
I open my mouth slowly, and she feeds
me a piece, then another to Asa,
and another to herself.
And we chew slowly like cows,
rolling the pieces inside our mouths,
and I don’t know
what I’m chewing so tired I am,
and I close my eyes.
THIS IS A DREAM
Asa snuggles next to me,
her body shaped around my own.
Next to me Tochan snores
like a bullfrog, lifting up the blanket
every time he exhales. I hear the hens
clucking in the yard and Horse hoofing
the barn ground, trying to wake
us up. And I smell Kachan,
her hand touching my arm,
Wake up, Natsu, my little summer.
Then I open my eyes,
and we are on the hard and dusty road,
surrounded by other people lying
this way on their sides or that way
on their backs, our bodies confused
arrows pointing true and false norths.
And I know:
this is not a dream.
A DRIED APPLE CANDY
Asa trips over an invisible
rock and I stumble along,
my feet hurting from blisters.
My steps are heavier, slower.
People pass by us
as I struggle along,
my shoulders hurting from the straps.
Auntie tugs my hand,
“Don’t get behind. Keep walking,
keep walking,” she says,
and I want to tell her I’m doing
my best, I’m walking as fast
as I can, but with each step
it’s harder and heavier.
Asa stops in mid-step,
“I can’t walk no more. I’m tired.”
And I tell her that we’ll be there
soon, though I don’t know where there is.
“When we get there,” I say,
“Tochan’ll be there
with candies, I promise.
Tochan said that he’s going
to wait for us there.”
And Asa peers up at me
like she always does when she knows
I’m lying, but this time I see
that she wants to believe me.
I look up. I see Auntie looking
at me like a cat measuring its prey,
not blinking, just staring,
then her face crinkles into laughs.
“Asa, I heard him say it, too.
He said that he’ll meet us
with every kind of candy he can
find. We’ll get there soon,”
and she pulls out a dried apple candy
from her bag. “See? Here’s one. Take it.”
And with that, Auntie closes
one eye, just like a cat,
a wink,
and a smile hovers on her lips,
as if to say, Let’s lie to her.
As if to say, That was easy.
A BUCKET FULL OF WATER
The dark clouds roll
over the sky,
pushing the blue aside
and the heaven and earth collide.
The ink-dark sky breaks open
and rain pours down
as if someone turned
a bucket full of water
upside down.
No one stops.
No one looks up.
We keep walking
with our heads down,
one step, then another.
We take steps
as if we are underwater,
our legs heavy,
our feet caught in mud.
The rain falls on us
like stones, rain bruises
our already bruised hearts
and makes us bow
our heads as if we’ve already
lost something important,
like home, like war,
like a thing so important
that we have to apologize for it.
THE UNBLINKING SUN
The sun breaks into the rain
and the rain stops as if on command,
like Horse halting with the cluck of my tongue.
One minute we were freezing in rain.
Another, we are boiling, sweat pouring down
our faces and our backs
and even our arms and legs.
Flies suck on our salty backs.
Flies bite into us.
The sun is an eye in the sky, watching us.
Toshio’s mother takes off her coat
and we trample on it.
Principal Ohara takes off his jacket
and we step on it.
One layer, another layer,
stripping like bamboo skins.
The sun beats on us.
Like the unforgiving eye,
like Auntie watching me.
The ground hardens
and turns into shards of glass
cutting through our shoes,
cutting our feet into ribbons.
There is pain from the inside.
From the outside, too.
The blisters pop.
Auntie slows down to pick up
the coat Asa threw down.
She looks at me,
asks me if I’m doing okay.
I nod. I lie and nod.
Lying is the only thing
that’s become easy.
THE HUNGRY NIGHT
The night swallows us
into the dark,
into the southern
landscape
with the blanket
of stars above us.
Our breaths white
against the dark
like cotton candy.
The cold rises
from the earth,
hungry ghosts looking for us.
EACH STEP A WAY TOWARD SAFETY
The darkness is long, measured by halting steps.
My feet burn, each step more painful
than the step before, and I trip from pain,
from an invisible root. Auntie slows down.
Asa, half-asleep, stops. Auntie takes
a pink sash from her bag and ties one end
to her backpack, strings it through
Asa’s buttonhole, and ties the end
to my backpack. “Don’t slow down, ever.
We can never separate, not from each other,
not from the group,” she says sternly,
and I hate her stinging words,
but I also know that she is telling the truth.
If we ever lose our way here, we will never
be able to find our way toward the garrison,
and this is also the truth: the three of us,
our lives are as one, and if we lose one another,
we each will be lost without the others.
HEART AS DARK AS THE NIGHT
Asa wilts in our chain of three.
“I’m tired,” she whispers,
her words falling out
of her mouth so slowly
that she sounds
like she’s half-asleep.
I’m tired, too, but
I don’t say anything.
“I’m tired,” Asa repeats,
louder this time,
and someone ahead
of us hisses in the darkness,
“Shut the brat up.”
My mouth opens
to talk back, but I hear
Auntie click her tongue
and say quietly,
“Forget it, Natsu,
save your energy.”
My arm feels so heavy
but I lift it and put my hand
on Asa’s shoulder and squeeze
it once, twice. It’s going
to be okay, I’m here.
I take one step, then another.
Asa starts to walk
again, slowly, her steps small.
In this darkness, the farther away
we are from home,
the more people become
meaner and meaner,
the light in their hearts
getting small and smaller
until they are extinguished,
their hearts as dark as the night,
as hard as this ground we walk on.
THE BURNING HEARTS
Chickens and pigs run
around. Smoke comes
out of chimneys.
Dirty dishes in a pail.
But so quiet. No one is about
in this Manchu hamlet.
It’s as if the world has stopped,
and the only people
who are alive are us.
Then suddenly,
doors burst open,
men, women, and children
with pitchforks,
brooms, big machetes,
their anger cracking
the air like oncoming
thunder, and we shrink
as one, huddling closer
to one another,
a ball of a dozen and a half
of us, shrinking.
“Riben Guizi! Riben Guizi!”
Japanese devils! Japanese devils!
they chant, and they begin
to tighten the circle,
and Principal Ohara says,
“Stay close to the group.
Don’t say anything.
Don’t move too quickly!”
as the chant gets closer
and they get closer
and he says something
quickly in Chinese,
rapidly, raising both his hands
in the air, moving forward.
He says something
again and again,
motioning us to keep
moving, to keep moving,
our arms raised as one,
in surrender, to show
that we mean them no harm.
My heart beats fast.
The principal keeps saying something
very fast, and we keep moving
through the small hamlet fast,
faster in one tight ball, until
we are out of the hamlet
and the villagers
stand by the edge
glaring at us.
They never put
down their weapons
and we keep our arms up
even when we can’t see
them anymore
and they can’t see us.
But I can still feel
their hatred and anger
burning red-hot,
and it’s as mysterious
as how the heart keeps beating
even after fear is gone.
THE HEART KEEPS BEATING, OUR FEET KEEP MOVING
We keep moving.
We keep moving
in fear,
walking fast,
walking faster.
“Stop,” the principal says.
But my legs want
to keep moving,
I am so scared.
I want to go away.
I can’t stop moving.
My throat is parched.
No matter how much I lick
my lips, they dry up.
Then I stop.
Only my heart keeps
beating fast and faster
and it would have kept
going and going
if it weren’t for my feet
that have stopped moving.
THE EMPEROR’S CHILDREN
“Listen carefully,” the principal says.
“Listen, this is important,” he says.
“We are in a hostile area and
we are extremely vulnerable
with no men and only women and children.
We must take precautions,
just like we talked about
during the drills.”
All the women in the group nod.
All the older girls in the group nod.
I look around, I look to Auntie,
and without saying a word,
she nods and opens her bag.
All around me, women open
their bags to look for something.
Auntie pulls out a knife.
She looks at me.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
I remember all the stories of wives
of samurais who killed
themselves rather than surrender
to the enemy. Isn’t this what Japanese
women are supposed to do?
Isn’t this what we’ve been taught
to do for His Majesty the Emperor?
We will die for him,
&n
bsp; and we Japanese are brave,
we are courageous. We do not fear death.
I am Japanese. I am courageous.
I do not fear death. I close my eyes.
Asa presses herself
against me.
“I don’t want to die,” she whispers.
I’m scared. I’m scared to die.
I’m scared but I have to be brave.
I nod. I’m ready.
I feel Auntie’s hand on my neck.
I feel the cold blade
of the knife touching my nape.
I hang my neck.
“I’m so sorry,” Auntie whispers,
and I close my eyes tighter.
RHYTHM OF THE HARVEST
My neck feels colder,
and something falls
onto the ground.
I slowly open my eyes.
There, by my knees,
the thick braid.
Then the hacking sound,
and another braid
falls to the ground.
She hacks strand after strand
of hair close to my skull.
I can feel the wind
passing over my head.
I can feel the wind
curving around my neck.
All around me, sounds similar
to the wheat being hacked off
during the harvest, one hack
calling to another,
a call-and-response.
All around me, black hair,
loose hair falls
onto the ground, then swirls up,
down, scattered by the wind.
WE SAT DOWN AS GIRLS, WE RISE AS MEN
We smear mud
on our faces.
We smear mud
on our hands and ankles.
Women bind their breasts
with sashes to flatten their chests.
Men do awful things to women,
Auntie whispers.
If we look like men, they’ll hopefully
leave us alone.
Asa looks up, her head as bald
as a newborn chick’s;
I take a handful
of mud and smear it on her cheek,
first, left, then right.
She takes a fistful of mud
and smears it on my cheek,
then we can’t stop.
We are back in the settlement
and smiling and almost laughing.
Auntie, her hair shorn like an old man’s,
looks at me, then breaks into a grin.
I kneeled down as a girl.
I stand up and walk
as if I were a boy
fearing nothing.
PART THREE
END OF SUMMER