planted when I was
born, feeling it, stroking it,
gently, as he looks at the house,
at the space where the nursery
used to be, then he raises his hat,
tips it gently, saying goodbye
to everything, to the house, to the wintering
roses left behind that will probably die
without his care, and to the tree
that has begun to bud.
April 1942
Chinatown,
where all the
Japanese stores
used to be, is
boarded up.
It’s a ghost town;
no one’s about so early
in the morning.
It’s a ghost town
now and maybe forever.
A sign:
Thank you for your patronage,
it was a pleasure to serve you
for the past twenty years.
Then it gets smaller and smaller
and finally disappears
as we drive
quickly
toward the junction
of Beacon Avenue
and Alaska Street
at the southern end
of Jackson Park.
April 1942
We are all tagged like parcels,
our bags, our suitcases,
my mother, me, Nick, Grandpa.
Tagged with numbers, we have become
numbers, faceless, meaningless.
We were told to come to Jackson Park,
just two suitcases each,
no more names, no memories, no Basho,
only ourselves and what we can carry.
Here we are, waiting for the buses
to arrive, photographers flashing and clicking,
other Japanese like us, so many,
all quietly waiting, wordlessly smiling,
without resistance.
And we all shiver because it is cold,
because we do not know where we are
going, because we are leaving
home as the enemy.
Part II. “Camp Harmony,”
Puyallup Assembly Center, Puyallup, Washington
April 1942
I fell asleep against a hard and unyielding
Nick, rigid with his anger, as the bus trembled,
shook like an old woman, like the rocking of a crib,
and we all slept like children, lost, not
sure where we were going. We were all
brothers and sisters, cousins and more,
our hair black, our skin yellow. No
one ever told me that there are so many
shades of yellow, that some of us aren’t
even yellow and slant-eyed
like the newspapers show.
We got on the bus this morning.
We packed our bags last night.
Jamie came with her Mom, like she promised,
and I smiled, though I wanted to cry,
my smile hard on my face like
a cracking plate. Soldiers yelled at us
angrily, Get on the bus, quickly,
pushing an old man into a bus with the butt
of their rifles; Japs go home , a redneck yelled, his voice
piercing the crowd.
Outside the bus, the sea of heads,
black, blond, brown, red, straight, wavy,
curly, all waving, yelling, smiling, hiding tears.
I leaned out the window and yelled, Jamie, take
care of Basho, Basho likes to be
rubbed on his belly, but be careful of his claws.
Jamie nodded and held out the broken heart,
I promise I will, I promise!
Grandpa sat quietly next to Mother, looking ahead,
his potted rose on his lap. Nick sat next to me,
his eyes as hard as his fists. Americans don’t
keep promises, you remember that, Mina, he hisses.
I waved goodbye, and Jamie waved and didn’t stop,
yelling promises that she’d write.
I remember Jamie’s dad with his jolly made-up face,
Jamie’s mom pressing a handkerchief to her eyes,
Jamie next to them, waving her arm
in a circle, mouthing something.
Then the first bus started to move, and
everyone became quiet. People outside.
People inside. All of us quiet,
so very quiet that it seemed we were watching an ancient
movie from the 1920s, where people cried without sound.
We were all sad, but put on smiling faces, like we did not
care, like our hearts were not breaking, though if you
listened hard, if you ignored the engines, you could hear
thousands of hearts breaking, shattering, into pieces.
April 1942
They open
our bags,
one by one,
those soldiers
with rifles
and hard eyes,
taking out this
and that,
holding up
Mother’s underwear
and mine, too.
Mother looks
away, her face
bright red;
mine is so hot
I think I’ll burst.
They probe
me from head
to toe,
searching my
head for lice,
listening
to my lungs
for whistling,
for
born, feeling it, stroking it,
gently, as he looks at the house,
at the space where the nursery
used to be, then he raises his hat,
tips it gently, saying goodbye
to everything, to the house, to the wintering
roses left behind that will probably die
without his care, and to the tree
that has begun to bud.
April 1942
Chinatown,
where all the
Japanese stores
used to be, is
boarded up.
It’s a ghost town;
no one’s about so early
in the morning.
It’s a ghost town
now and maybe forever.
A sign:
Thank you for your patronage,
it was a pleasure to serve you
for the past twenty years.
Then it gets smaller and smaller
and finally disappears
as we drive
quickly
toward the junction
of Beacon Avenue
and Alaska Street
at the southern end
of Jackson Park.
April 1942
We are all tagged like parcels,
our bags, our suitcases,
my mother, me, Nick, Grandpa.
Tagged with numbers, we have become
numbers, faceless, meaningless.
We were told to come to Jackson Park,
just two suitcases each,
no more names, no memories, no Basho,
only ourselves and what we can carry.
Here we are, waiting for the buses
to arrive, photographers flashing and clicking,
other Japanese like us, so many,
all quietly waiting, wordlessly smiling,
without resistance.
And we all shiver because it is cold,
because we do not know where we are
going, because we are leaving
home as the enemy.
Part II. “Camp Harmony,”
Puyallup Assembly Center, Puyallup, Washington
April 1942
I fell asleep against a hard and unyielding
Nick, rigid with his anger, as the bus trembled,
shook like an old woman, like the rocking of a crib,
and we all slept like children, lost, not
sure where we were going. We were all
brothers and sisters, cousins and more,
our hair black, our skin yellow. No
one ever told me that there are so many
shades of yellow, that some of us aren’t
even yellow and slant-eyed
like the newspapers show.
We got on the bus this morning.
We packed our bags last night.
Jamie came with her Mom, like she promised,
and I smiled, though I wanted to cry,
my smile hard on my face like
a cracking plate. Soldiers yelled at us
angrily, Get on the bus, quickly,
pushing an old man into a bus with the butt
of their rifles; Japs go home , a redneck yelled, his voice
piercing the crowd.
Outside the bus, the sea of heads,
black, blond, brown, red, straight, wavy,
curly, all waving, yelling, smiling, hiding tears.
I leaned out the window and yelled, Jamie, take
care of Basho, Basho likes to be
rubbed on his belly, but be careful of his claws.
Jamie nodded and held out the broken heart,
I promise I will, I promise!
Grandpa sat quietly next to Mother, looking ahead,
his potted rose on his lap. Nick sat next to me,
his eyes as hard as his fists. Americans don’t
keep promises, you remember that, Mina, he hisses.
I waved goodbye, and Jamie waved and didn’t stop,
yelling promises that she’d write.
I remember Jamie’s dad with his jolly made-up face,
Jamie’s mom pressing a handkerchief to her eyes,
Jamie next to them, waving her arm
in a circle, mouthing something.
Then the first bus started to move, and
everyone became quiet. People outside.
People inside. All of us quiet,
so very quiet that it seemed we were watching an ancient
movie from the 1920s, where people cried without sound.
We were all sad, but put on smiling faces, like we did not
care, like our hearts were not breaking, though if you
listened hard, if you ignored the engines, you could hear
thousands of hearts breaking, shattering, into pieces.
April 1942
They open
our bags,
one by one,
those soldiers
with rifles
and hard eyes,
taking out this
and that,
holding up
Mother’s underwear
and mine, too.
Mother looks
away, her face
bright red;
mine is so hot
I think I’ll burst.
They probe
me from head
to toe,
searching my
head for lice,
listening
to my lungs
for whistling,
for
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