ENGLISH GROUP
being away
from the Dragon’s Mouth
and han six
for a total of
sixty-five weekend hours
makes Monday morning
back at school
the worst—
Mika stabbing me with her words
Gō slamming me every time I stand
Yuki hitting the back of my head
whenever I make a mistake and
Shunta and Naho egging them on
all day long Ōshima-sensei
seems blind to my situation
just yelling about noise
way too much noise
so at the final bell I race
from classroom to school gate
to our car waiting uphill
for Cora and me
I feel like telling Mom
step on it
like we’re in
a getaway car
even though
we’re just driving
the usual route
to English group
English group
is kids like us—
transplants
or hāfu mixes
or Japanese returnees
who lived abroad
a long time
a whole group
of English speakers
from different Japanese schools
who meet once a week
in a public hall in Yokohama
to keep up our English—
not just speaking, but also
reading
writing
thinking
researching
presenting
we’re divided into olders and youngers and in the olders we’re
Will—mom English, dad Japanese
Nenita—mom Filipino, dad Japanese
Erika—mom Japanese, dad Japanese-American
Trina—mom Chinese-Singaporean, dad Japanese
Ami—mom Japanese, dad Ghanaian-Canadian
me, Jason or “J”—mom Polish/Italian-American dad Dutch/English-American
today Trina’s mom is teaching
the olders and youngers together
a new unit on economics
and we’re learning about scarcity
which we get when she tricks us
into thinking there are many bags
of popcorn on the table—help yourselves!
but the popcorn runs out
when only a few have had any
because it turns out most bags
contain only crumpled paper
so Ami’s sister starts bawling
then Trina’s mom asks us how
to solve the problem of limited supply
we suggest sharing the popcorn
but the youngers Ethan and Sophie
already opened their bags and ate half
which leads to a lesson on allocation
and resources and choice and then
we break into olders and youngers
for discussions and exercises
we have to come up with
examples of things
in limited supply
and think of a way
to allocate that good
or resource
Will, Nenita, Trina
Ami, and I list
water
time
manga in English
money for fun stuff
unicycles at school
electricity
then we crack up
when Erika who loves fashion
and spends her allowance
on shoes says shoe closets!
we laugh and joke
and no one
whacks anyone
on the head