Watching Dumbo in Yokohama
Published by Euonia Review
This time, the cuckoo clock still cuckoos
once on the half hour too
you have to be quick to catch him, I tell you.
mosquito smoke coils up heavy
in the humid September heat, cicadas chirp behind
white tin blinds, we drink cold barley tea from old
Peter Rabbit cups, eat white toast, thick cut
with cherry jam, wait for the next cuckoo
call to mark the empty day.
Here we are, in your land of shimmering shrines
last time, the seed of a thought by the light on the water
this time, more life than any thought can hold
face shining and asking
hair black and sticking to your hot forehead
eyes like dark lit marbles
hands still chubby and looking to feel
the world into fast understanding.
Here you are, lying easy on the tatami floor
here you are, looking like the people in the photos on the wall
typhoons brew and pass
wet storms horizontal and expected
walls that keep us confined and alive and aware of
our human itch to run and numb, and this we share.
I know, this moment will pass
I know, I will look back and remember
Baba putting on Dumbo again as we sit sticking together
you, following the story in dubbed Japanese
your hot shoulder burrowing into my hot side
and I’m hot and humid and bitten and impatient and
I’m looking for an escape
from this nowness, from your needs.
I know, your needs will soon leave my side
and I will fold your summer clothes to put away
and pass on next year
when a new you will be here.
This moment I long to leave will soon be
the one I long to relive, in all its golden
weight, waiting for the cuckoo to call
watching Dumbo in Yokohama
your hot shoulder burrowing into my hot side.
An extra note
This poem was written after a day looking after my then two-year old (and my then six-month old), at my in-laws house in Yokohama, in 35-degree post-typhoon heat, waiting for my husband to get home from a trip he had had to make. And it was HOT! And I was bothered! And I was impatient and irritated and felt out of place and claustrophobic and homesick. And my two-year old was being a two-year old and just wanted to watch Dumbo (in Japanese).
And I just wanted the moment to pass.
It pricks my eyes with tears when I read it back now. It’s a poem about the many conflicting emotions of motherhood - wanting uncomfortable moments to pass while knowing you’ll soon be nostalgic about them; willing your child to grow up and out of a certain phase but knowing you’ll miss that version of them as soon as they do; trying to be present in the nothing-ness but simultaneously seeking distraction and escape. It also touches on the theme of belonging, and the recognition that my daughters belong to a land and a language that I will always feel on the outskirts of.
You’ll see the reference to our previous trip to Japan and the poem ‘Light on the water’ in the line ‘last time, the seed of a thought by the light on the water’. Amazing how an idea can turn into a full-force human being!