On learning my first real word of Japanese, not counting kimono, tsunami, kamikaze, karaoke, sayonara, sushi, sukiyaki, futon, sake, karate, origami, bonsai, haiku, zen, etcetera
Before I speak
hello, thank you, goodbye—
before I make a word,
a phrase, do its real work,
bridge the ocean, shift
the quotidian—
I learn of the alien
heart lodged in the back
of my throat: three sharp,
bursts of frog music:
ko ko ro
ko-ko-ro
kokoro
こころ
心
the word an experiment in the flow
of foreignness, bodiless and free-
floating, a broken,
nocturnal migration
across choppy waters:
how the sounds repel,
relent, then gather sense;
how my home and native
heart-land—eroded, reclaimed
again—again aspires to quicken,
re-signify the world; how all
my constellations, tremors
of my body, waves
from a distant shore, continue
to crash and ebb.
first published in Lotus-eater Literary Magazine (Italy) 2019
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wonderful