you don’t even bother

to build your castle away from the waves

“Machi-chan”—

I like the moment he hesitates

before using my pet name

The smell of you dances on the salt breeze

and in your arms

I turn into a seashell

“Marry me,”

after two canned cocktails—

are you sure you want to say that?

Head cradled in my lap like a child,

lonely vagabond

you breathe quietly, asleep

Five-thirty p.m.—

you and I walk on sand, kissing

under the eye of Mt. Fuji

“I was born to run,” you say—

for you who have no hometown

I want to become the sea

“I’m going to go feel the winter waves,”

I say, and walk away—

unable to meet your gaze on the beach

Unable to accept this love—

walking back at the hour

when big hand and small hand overlap

Don’t forget

the broken wing of the airplane

we buried together in sand

Loneliness drifts down in December—

in my life, one plus one

forever makes two

Ancient love poems

touch my heart this evening—

to each one I give a star

Using your hairbrush

to brush my hair

I savor your male smell

A morning of waiting for you—

at four, at five-thirty, again at six,

I check the alarm clock dial

“Till I’m thirty

I’ll stroll through life,” you say—

what scenery am I to you, I wonder?

Evening, and I wonder—

how long was her hair?

the girl who lived in this room with you

Aren’t you cold?

Alone, hanging in midair,

you float through life unattached

River of taxis

at two a.m.—

crosswalk fast asleep

“Today the public bath was closed.”

I want to spend every day

talking of little things like that

Knowing the smallness

of a man who thinks only of me,

I still can’t help wishing you would

“Today makes exactly 500 days

since we met,” he whispers—

surprised, I jump away

Like snow drifting down

from where my mother lives—

loneliness in Tokyo

February begins—

for the next two months,

everything a memory

For some reason

it is woman’s lot to know

people cannot live on love

In Yokohama’s Chinatown

perhaps for the last time—

buying a smile-shaped cookie

Cooking an omelet

flavored with tears

of coming morning and farewell

Valentine’s Day away from you—

I spend the day

like the priestess of a shrine

Realizing that was the night

of our first kiss,

I shut my diary with a bang

You hold me tight,

as if I were going far away—

March, the month of good-bye

In March, my heart indifferent

to the coming spring,

I gaze with you at late plum blossoms

Unable to say what waits to be said

this early afternoon,

we focus on the baseball game

Two outs, bases loaded—

you crouch, tense, as if it were

a major life crisis

Passing each other on escalators

headed in opposite ways—

happy to be with you if only for a moment

Around the unbending telephone pole,