I watch you in the dust and you are
issei, Nisei, sansei
in white stone and kanji I cannot read
the thousand tsurus drape around your ropes
refracting the sunlight you squinted away from
and the Shinto Buddhist Christian prayers
give me homeland
and I know you are my people
buried underneath the signs labeled “baseball field”
and “Catholic Church” I see you
running, laughing, trying to live
while the guns point inward
and I know you are my people
captured in Chiura Obata paintings
and Dorothea Lange black and whites
you are my people, the checker-dressed girls
pledging allegiance in San Francisco
the old man whose …

Evelyn grips the cold curves of the sink. She closes her eyes, lets the image of malformed Irish Spring soap and unscrubbed tub fade to black.
She remembers back when she was a kid, her mother promoted afternoon naps by turning them into a competition. Evelyn dutifully shut her eyes alongside her brother and her two favorite cousins, knowing that whoever woke up last got to walk to 7-Eleven and pick out a piece of candy after church. She always faked it—listening hard for the rustling of clothing, …

In sleeping fields beyond the city lays
I know not what, it matters not to me.
In numbered days I craved the craze that brays
In city streets; I think that you are free.
I want to be a good woman, and I
Wanted for you to be my good man, but
I tried my best and could not make you cry
But once. How is it now that I’m away?
Do you sleep soundly? Do you sleep alone?
When you smoke, or when you see the leaves sway,
Do you think of me then? Is this our love, grown?
Won’t …