No, I won’t slow down, you oaf—
Keep up or I’ll leave you be.
There, see that? The elders’ golden smiles and gray cataract eyes that whisper wisdom?
You know the type. You see it,
I know you do.
Collect those colors as they desperately look for a new master.
The dirt stinks, doesn’t it? Like
Short breaths and shallow memories.
That’s what you are, you know.
Maybe you don’t yet. But you will.
Watch me lick my lips. Yes, like that—
Clockwise.
I know the cycles of forlorn feet shuffling the dust caked on your legs, the same as my lips.
You’ll take those memories that cling to your sandaled toes and calf hair, and they’ll rub across
Your tatami mats, your bedroom.
You don’t know if she’ll remember you, either,
So don’t panic when you glimpse the silent blizzard of dust when light streaks through your window.
You won’t choke on it, not like you’re choking on your own breath right now, boy, keep up!
One thing’s for sure:
She won’t wait for you if she doesn’t know your face.
You need her to reach down and stream her fingers through the loose dirt beneath her feet, feel the grains of laughs and hearts cascade from her palm.
Why? Stop asking so many questions and maybe you’ll find an answer.
You, boy, are only one flake under her foot,
Just as she is only one beneath yours.
All you can do, all you can fight for, is to
Spur her to plunder.
Effort, boy.
That’s what it takes to be a man of many faces.
How could she possibly discern you from the flood of faces strewn across the road?
All faces must be yours.
It’s not enough to add colors to the cuttlefish—
You must eviscerate cuttlefish,
Bathe yourself in their blood.
Collect those colors on every one of your teeth
So seasons ask your smile when to change.
Don’t look at me like that.
Know it or not, you’ve done this all your life.
See the samurai wiping sweat from his cheek?
The eel merchant missing an ear?
The lord and lady staring at anything but each other?
The boy stumbling as he hauls water pails to the smithy?
They shed faces like snake skins every minute,
But the faces leave their marks—
Creases, wrinkles, lines above their brows,
Rivlets for tonight’s tears to tear deeper and deeper toward their throats.
Their rivers must be yours, boy.
You are the delta, they the baptized mayflies rising like flames from your surface.
Your surface.
This is the turn, isn’t it? She passes the labor district on her way to the moon shrine every harvest, no?
No, you don’t need haiku. No, no, no tanka tonight.
You are the poem, not the words.
She must speak you, see you as you are,
Or the moon will kiss her before you have time to blink.
You don’t want that.
Come here, then. Straighten your obi, wipe the dirt from your hakama.
Calm down, calm now.
Collect yourself.
Don’t look yet, but I see her.
Yes, there she is . . . gentle footsteps caressing the future,
Her glance the crickets’ song at twilight.
Yes, you’ve chosen right.
Look in my eyes, boy.
You are the cat she sees before she sleeps.
Your eyes blink her jasmine thoughts,
Your grin holds her destiny of stars.
You are everything, boy.
You are everything.
