From a Three-Cornered World. James Masao Mitsui

      Destination: Tule Lake Relocation CenterMay 20, 1942

      She had raised the window

      higher

      than her head; then

      paused

      to lift wire spectacles,

      wiping

      sight back with a wrinkled

      hand-

      kerchief. She wanted to watch

      the old

      place until the train’s passing

      erased

      the tarpaper walls and tin roof,

      she had

      been able to carry away

      so little.

      The fingers of her left

      hand

      worried two strings

      attached

      to a baggage tag

      flapping

      from her

      lapel.

Photograph of a Child,Japanese-American Evacuation,Bainbridge Island, Washington,March 30, 1942

      The soft sound of his steps on the pier

      is obscured by the heavy footfall

      of the adults, rippling the planked deck.

      One hand reaches above his head

      to wrap around father’s ring finger,

      the other clutches a balsa model

      of a U.S. fighter plane, held

      upside down against his chest.

      He is the only one who uses this time

      to peer between the cracks at his feet,

      trying to see the shiny ribs of water,

      imagine a monstrous flounder hugging

      the sediment, both eyes staring

      from the top of its flat head.

Picture of a Japanese Farmer, Woodlands,California, May 20, 1942

      His waiting becomes a time to hear thoughts, the sound

      of unseen sparrows, the glance for any movement

      from a road on the other side of dark eyes.

      It is the tossing down of a cigarette,

      the quiet imprint of a twisting foot.

      Behind him a butcher paper sign on a mailbox

      sells what will be awkward tomorrow. Feet in black

      Sunday shoes are stable as the block of wood on end

      used for a seat. Elbows on knees, he looks hard

      at the packed earth. Another cigarette

      waits between fingers like an artist’s brush.

      Willows drift sap in their shadows, coating the man,

      the ground and the top half of a discarded oil drum

      on its side. The bottom has no viscous coat.

      Dust will not adhere for this plain reason.

Section Hand, Great Northern Railway

      I. LAMONA, 1953

      Finding my father’s current

      wine bottle slouched

      in a wooden rainbarrel, one night,

      I grabbed it by the neck

      like an old, long-handled

      grenade and tossed it over our

      garage, towards the creek.

      The dark glass tumbled,

      somersaulted into the night,

      a pint of used blood.

      I planted another bottle

      filled with rainwater and fragments

      of dead leaves, hid, and could

      only laugh when he came out

      for a drink, sputtered and swore

      at a world that wouldn’t understand

      half-Japanese, half-English.

      II. SKYKOMISH, 1913. A PHOTOGRAPH

      With eyebrows like black smears

      of stage paint my father, at 25,

      takes a stance on our front porch.

      No one would dare brush past

      his dark face, his pockets

      conceal strong small hands.

      No one would dare to tip

      his bowler hat, ridicule

      a checkered tie, or snap

      those elastic bands anchoring

      the loose sleeves of his shirt.

      Links of a watch chain dangle

      in an arc from a belt loop

      to the watch pocket in his vest.

      He is a match for the chair beside him:

      its wood, carved like the ruffled

      wing feathers of a pheasant.

The Morning My Father Died, April 7, 1963

      The youngest son, I left the family inside and stood

      alone in the unplanted garden by a cherry tree

      we had grown ourselves, next to a burn barrel

      smoldering what we couldn’t give away or move

      to Seattle. Looking over the rusty edge I could see

      colors of volcano. Feathers of ash floated

      up to a sky that was changing. I stared at the sound

      of meadowlarks below the water tank

      on the basalt cliff where the sun would come.

      I couldn’t stop smelling sagebrush, the creosote

      bottoms of posts; the dew that was like a thunderstorm

      had passed an hour before. Thoughts were trees

      under a lake; that moment was sunflower, killdeer

      and cheatgrass. Volunteer wheat grew strong

      on the far side of our place along the old highway.

      Undeberg’s rooster gave the day its sharper edge,

      the top of the sun. Turning to go back inside,

      twenty years of Big Bend Country

      took