Foster Mother pulled and pulled while foster Father planned for business venture after business venture that would fail, and foster Grandfather reread the works of the poets of yore. His most favored poem was the very first tanka, whose subject was Izumo, the Province of the Gods, the Province of his beloved Matsue. The tanka began with what you would choose as your Japanese true name. I remember you repeating its meaning aloud. “Yakumo” is a poem in and of itself, you marveled, your eye shining, lit by its own sun.

Mother would have been on the Ōhashi Bridge but for me.

Born into the house of Shiomi, Mother came of age attended to by thirty servants. Sixty hands and sixty feet labored in her stead. By the 3rd year of Meiji when she was without them, she at the age of thirty-three was a body without limbs.

Before my birth, it was agreed that if I were a female, I would live in the house of Inagaki, as these distant relatives had no child of their own, and Father and Mother already had two sons and one daughter. The house of Koizumi could spare a daughter to a lower-ranked samurai house, it was thought. Within a decade of my birth, Father and Mother would have two more sons. The house of Koizumi is rich in sons, it was said. But upon Father’s passing, these sons did not become Mother’s limbs. I did.

In 1879, the 12th year of Meiji, the life of the mind for me came to an end. Upon completing the seventh grade at the age of eleven, I received from the prefectural government fifty needles and thirty skeins of silk threads. As I had completed the seventh grade two years ahead of the other girls, I was also awarded another thirty skeins of silk threads. Altogether, they were weightless in these hands.

Foster Father or—if I am to speak only the truth tonight—foster Mother, as she was the sole earner then, could not afford for me to remain in primary school for the final three years, which would have required the payment of fees. For the girls whose families could indulge them, they would have the newly opened Normal School for the young ladies of Matsue to look forward to upon their graduation.

Setsu, you can use the needles and threads to sew your lips shut, your eyelids closed, a dark hood for your empty head.

Setsu, you can use the needles and threads to sew your blood into the fabric of other people’s garments.

Setsu, you can use the needles and threads to sew for every single grain of rice that you will swallow.