Prayer At the Tomb of My Wife's Grandfather
Tomori, Okinawa, April 2003

You should know that I do not believe the spirit exists
after the body expires. I prefer the tangible:
tiny red spiders crawling through kanji
carved from volcanic stone; 
cane leaves blown by wind, reaching 
like green fingers toward my flesh
as I walked here; and ashes, and
shards of bone swaddled by a handkerchief 
inside a concrete crypt. 
In these things there is the succor of certainty.

Ivy has invaded, you must know. It will crack this place,
sure as a typhoon, tendrils lapping into joints, seeking water.
We clear it, strip it away without speaking, leaving
nothing, not even memory, nothing.

Later, the women will make miso in your house,
still your house after five years.
I will move your wife into the dinner chair,
holding her like a talisman
in my hands, feeling two
creaking coral shoulders.
When I am dying I will
think back to this moment,
in this land where the word for poetry
sounds like death, where inside
my chest I am sure
my heart smells like sugarcane.

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