Jane Joritz-Nakagawa
Childhood Reminiscence
A new idea
stalking a famous person writing
a book about it
Like so many
ruined fruit I planned
to tell you this
Before I died My parents
told me not to go there
Every day I went
To find the place
we left
a disputed country
Idea
left on its own
debris
Luminously dead
run we run
everything: daddy, tell us that
story again
Sun
access to reluctant landscape
maybe even the end
tears silently away
inverse commands, earth
splinters back
cigarette burn or
tobacco face world
drops out
sight bombs away
unwatchable pleasure
reassembled body helps
blood swerve sun
wrapped in blue cellophane
on a dirty sofa
Jane Joritz-Nakagawa majored in poetry at Columbia College (Chicago) where she studied with the poet Paul Hoover. She now lives in Japan where she is an associate professor of English at a national university. Email is welcome at janenakagawa@yahoo.com.