The first weekend in Tokyo, watching kabuki,
you fell unbearably in love
with the throaty tone of every stringed samisen.
At a shop in Kamakura,
I sifted through a box of polished worry stones
etched with the kanji for fortune,
marriage, grief.
You taught English. I wrote poems. By the end of June,
the one bedroom had become a cage of rain
and our paired bicycles were rusting against
the chain fence. The newspapers I tried to read
held column after column
of elegant code. You came home from work
to find me pacing the tiny kitchen, naked,
disregarding the open windows.
Your scolding was as hot and brief
as a wasp sting. For your July
birthday I spread sushi rice
onto each scrim of seaweed, the way
Tomiko had shown me, picturing
your pleasure. I was happy
believing that ours was the only world. In August,
you stayed on to drill children
on "cat" and "bat." I flew home
and reread boxes full of your love letters,
folding them like origami cranes.