A Heian Diary

1

The fowler got us young.

Our wings were clipped.

We were caged, sold.

The wings grew back.

It’s terrible to be human.

2

You’re dead.

I survive you,

living on memories.

Not so different

from when you

walked through the door

once every few years.

3

You see me,

I see something else:

a veranda, a cot,

my father

breathing.

I was a young girl,

he’d be lying on

his stomach,

and tell me to

walk on his back.

Two steps up I took,

two steps down,

fingers touching

the mosquito net frame

for balance.

4

I was writing you

when I felt someone

was watching me.

Even in a dream

I’m not free

to write to you.

5

How many are there?

I write you one,

you send back three.

I lose count.

They gleam in the dust.

Snatches from them

keep coming to me

at odd hours.

6

An uncrumpled sheet,

an uncreased pillow,

and no unwashed cup

in the kitchen sink.

Need I say more?

7

Wherever you are,

go to sleep.

I trust you’re not

thinking of me.

Today I feel

like a cake of soap

that’s been rubbed

out of existence.

8

We draw a line

in sand.

It gets erased.

We draw it again.

Slowly, sand turns

to stone.

9

Waking,

I sigh.

It punctuates

the hours

and ends

the day’s sentence.

10

He goes past

the window I sit by,

a notebook before me.

There’s no one here,

no sound of footsteps.

He goes past again.

That’s how the day begins,

ends. Black are the trees

against the sky.

11

Waiting for words

that seldom come.

I never am sure

if it’s words I wait for

or him.

12

You say you don’t,

but know me you do.

I’m a weirdo.

The more you

unlayer my twelve

silk robes, the less

of me you’ll see.

13

I only see

when he’s before me

uncombed hair,

rail thin arms,

untrimmed nails,

bushy eyebrows.

What does he look like?

After the Prakrit

14

Whenever he comes

they both come.

There are two of him.

When he’s with me

the other waits outside.

Then both leave.

15

I sit by the fire,

roasting peppers;

the mind lights

an improbable candle.

The fire dies out,

the peppers are done;

a wind steadies

the candle.

16

The narrow bed

uncomfortable for one

in which two slept

and two more could fit

is back to being

uncomfortably narrow.

17

Were its beak

softer, I’d trust

the parrot

with this message.

18

The tea

a friend offered

in her best cup

tasted of onion water.

Why should this

autumn night,

the stars out,

remind me of it?

19

It’s not me

he was calling out to,

the turtle dove

on the transmission mast.

I spent the morning

listening to him,

the tea getting cold.

20

Separated at head,

flank, and tail,

joined at the same,

we’re a pair of wings

with different markings.

21

Like tiny pinwheels

with seven vanes,

the red-centred

grieving flowers

of the night jasmine

glow in the dark.

Don’t step on them

when you come.

They’re freshly fallen.

22

It had it all:

legs, abdomen,

brain, feelers,

reproductive organs,

all white as snow dust.

Till it moved,

I thought it was

a bit of fluff on my skirt.

23

All day in my

garden study I’m

happy watching insects.

What is it men

go chasing after

and waste their time?

24

Now that you’ve

made me open

the door

to rooms where light

does not enter,

will you keep standing

at the threshold?

25

It’s simple things

I now take pleasure in.

Long gone are the days.

Lit from end to end

with darkness,

the approaching path

is where I’ve always

been arriving.