A classical fortress
in stone
she owns
a host
of romantic traits—
her nose
in profile aquiline,
an old and careful ship
but upside down—
she dashes orders off
without fuss,
“finds fault
without heart.”

Embroidered with tigers!
Lined satin-red
and the man
in the photograph
wears them
with ease—
I want a paintbrush
in hand
and his same
sun-squint
and spilt drinks
and short nights
spent on deck—
that hair,
those hands,
those sea-spangled,
horn-rimmed spectacles
he wears honestly,
to better see.

Enormous boulder in Itoshima
you stand recently freed
in your circle of spiritual space
in your forest of bamboo trees.
Did you sense the purple-colored cloud
above her head
when Empress Jingu visited
in the year two hundred one?
Can you feel today each bow,
each arm spread wide,
each breath held specially,
released specially
for you? Back home
where no great stone
lives close
we feel you still.