I have been looking for you Kumiko
in cutlery boxes long like caskets,
used to store old photographs. Here,
you are almost seventy and small
like a little sister – your sure smile
showing years of eating unagi, collecting
ear pickers, saving Easter eggs until they sink
and wrinkle. I cannot see you, the widow,
nor the cob-webbed rice bin, nor the fires,
nor the sick bays. Instead,
at the mouth of a fenceless field,
chrysanthemums swing up and powder
your chin in the afternoon wind.
You, no longer particular,
fit yourself between bouquets and hold still.
