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It Couldn't be More Appropriate |
I wonder about the woman that gave me up for
adoption, I imagine her in post-war Japan
going about the business of rebuilding from
the ashes of the bombings,
I wonder if she was there when America dropped
the bomb, was she close to Nagasaki or
Hiroshima, did she see the plane as it
approached, did she run in fear or watch
intently, curious about the big silver bird
with its payload of atomic death,
did she run through the streets looking for
parents, family, and friends, did she recognize
the gentle outlines of people left as flash
burn against the crumbling walls,
did she walk aimlessly in shock, left with no
idea of what to do next, calling out the names
of mother and father or brothers or sisters or
possibly her own young children?
did I lose an older brother, an older sister,
a grandparent or all of the above, is there
transgeneration cell memories telling me that
I was the lucky one, I didn’t get fried in
the blast and I don’t have cancer and I didn’t
have to eat carrots from irradiated fields
covered in unstable particles naked to the eye,
Sometimes I imagine my father to be a great
giant of a red headed Swede, a great builder
of nations, plowing the war under caterpillar
tractor treads and erecting monoliths of modern
industry, skyscrapers and the mad
dash to make money,
I like to think of him as something special,
his only sin a small half-breed baby left
behind in his travel, he is an adventurous
man like the great men that built the Hoover
Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sears Tower
and the Pyramids in Egypt, a man’s man,
these are some of the scenes that flip through
my mind when I think of the woman that gave me
away, sometimes I pretend she did it for my
good, gave me to a good Christian family ready
to love and nurture a poor half Japanese
infant covered in sores, the story goes that
way, I was ill from the start.
But sometimes I see it through the portals of
my worldly eyes and I know my queen mamma is
really mama-san, pouring sake as politely
considered hospitality girls, lining the
frontier bars of “New Tokyo,” my hero father
likely a robust iron worker horny for that
“slant-eyed pussy” running wild like barbarians
celebrating the spoils of war—one bar at a
time,
mom was a whore and dad was a drunk—it couldn’t
be more appropriate.
copyright 2005
Johnny
Masuda |
