Salad Anniversary

MACHI TAWARA

SALAD
ANNIVERSARY

Translated from the Japanese
by Juliet Winters Carpenter

PUSHKIN PRESS
LONDON

Contents

1. Title Page
2. August Morning
3. Baseball Game
4. Morning Necktie
5. I Am the Wind
6. Summertime Ship
7. Wake-up Call
8. Hashimoto High School
9. Pretending to Wait for Someone
10. Salad Anniversary
11. Twilight Alley
12. My Bisymmetrical Self
13. So, Good Luck
14. Jazz Concert
15. Backstreet Cat
16. Always American
17. Afterword
18. About the Publisher
19. Copyright

August Morning

Always playing this song

you race along the seacoast road—

“Hotel California”

I watch you on your surfboard

poised between blueness

of sky and sea

Beach picnic for two—

thinking of egg sandwiches

never even touched

Sitting against a sunny wall—

your legs and mine,

parallel lines

On Kujukuri Beach

taking picture after picture

I may only throw away

Is there anything more?

More to believe, more to want?

Sprawled side by side on sand

Fat oval sun

can’t bear the burden

of its own weight

Under an orange sky on Kujukuri Beach

I snuggle up to you

in monochrome

The gentleness of lapping waves

makes me unafraid

to hear you say good-bye

You and I on the night beach

face to face in silence—

a sparkler softly sputters

Enjoying your hesitation,

I watch you hunt for words

to break the silence

Your left hand,

exploring my fingers one by one—

maybe this is love

This too a memory,

I leave it as it is—

dent in my straw hat

“Call again,” you say, and hang up—

I want to call again

right now

“Sorry,” I say lightly

as if to a friend—

Father just stares into his teacup

In the fitting room

I suddenly find my arms full

of floral prints you like

So huge

it gladdens my heart—

this store’s shopping bag

Happiness of standing before a grocer’s

at four in the afternoon

planning the supper menu

After you have gone

evening gathers in my heart—

all the scenery is you

Another Saturday of waiting for you.

Time spent waiting—

food a woman lives on

In the ballpark,

midday made before our eyes,

we shine

My team in a tight spot—

I look on somehow happy,

leaning against you

Your hand

signaling for a draft beer

catches my eye and absorbs me

On my birthday

a year seems short,

a day long

The rose blooms,

pretending not to know

that 400 yen made it mine

“Call me again” “Wait for me”

Your love is always spoken

in commands

Glancing up at the falling rain

suddenly I want

your lips

Escape from a shower into a street stall

and drink a glass of cheap saké—

fun to be alive

The woman in the street stall

calls me your wife—

and so, for a while, I am

At a tiny shop

like a child’s play store

I buy you a toothbrush

Warm—knowing

when I say “I’m cold,”

you’re there to say “Me too”

With the man I want to spend my life loving

my heart aches—

thinking of the slender margin