Auntie Sachi wouldn’t have given me the Time magazine
if Uncle Kiyoshi hadn’t read it yet.
She wouldn’t have let us stay in their house
if she wanted us to move out.
She wouldn’t say she loves both her daughters the same
and give one more rice.
She is always truthful—
so I know she didn’t lie
when she told me that during the war
her family had to sell their house and grocery store
and everything they owned in Sacramento
and move to Arizona
to live in a shack
in a camp
surrounded by barbed wire
with hundreds of other families
while her big brother fought in the army
for our country.
“You’re a liar, Liar!”
they’re telling me in history.
“Show us where that’s in our book,”
they want to know.
It’s not in our history book.
Maybe the people who wrote the book
forgot what happened to Auntie,
or decided to leave that part out
so no one would ever know what happened.
And after a while, everyone would forget
or call those who remembered
liars.