My Inaka

Orientalism is
far from positive,
yet here we are,
police at the door,
dancing to sabotage
in the best way possible.

Lao Tzu said
that in both
ruling a nation and
gutting a fish,
only the small things
are important.

Being on the margin,
we stretched that margin out,
painted over the darkness
in vibrant hues
and called that margin our home.

We were all sempai,
all kohai, all bound
to each other.

We sabotaged,
dressed in black,
the ninjas of inaka,
recycling electronics
and rewiring our heads
as we made the
Gaijin Ghetto ours.

Faces brown, faces black,
faces white, all doves
riffing off a culture like jazz
the way gangiro girls
do at matsuris: all non-straight
hair, non-black hair, non-dark
eyes.

Hands raised, in class and out:
why do you ride a charinko?
and
why did America bomb us?
were the two that resonated
answers
while the same people
who asked the questions
burned bleach into their hair,
quoted American
movies at every turn,
and never once stopped
being Japanese.

The little things
ah!
the little things,
like cheap meat from
nine to ten,
green lights called blue
and blue things called
yellow
and (yellow) dancing girls -
the ones who get paid
to talk to you - falling
like leaves in fall once
they figure out you
live here.

Wait til the skirts see that this
foreigner, this gaijin
rode to the bar on a recycled
bike painted spray-silver
just so another bike wouldn't
get stolen. With a wicker
basket and three angry
padlocks.

You'd never know that,
during a thunderstorm,
wee kleptomaniacs
rampage through the city,
stealing all the umbrellas
marked Y - O - U.

Maybe it was the smile that hid
this; or maybe chewing
intestines that wouldn't be
swallowed simply meant
more beer.

Every Monday made you smile.
Every Monday was a block party;
every Monday natives & foreigners,
young & old, thin and fat and
lovers and cheaters and singers
and jokers and people normally
separated by geography and head-
boundaries clucked til the wee
hours, chickens come home
to roost.