my mother pried my hands
gripped round a nashi [plum] tree
when she won, i broke free
ran into the emerald waters
of kinbu bay, swimming
from shore
my father—thank God for
his Marine Corps training—
caught up to this mermaid
and pulled me from my home
okinawa
maybe i knew what kinda place
america would be
maybe i could feel the snow
in my hands packing it over
a block of ice to throw
at the philly neighbor boy
who said his parents
laugh at us every night
and call us niggers
[my “snowball” knocked him out cold
he was in the hospital a week]
maybe i could feel the heat
of that woman’s spit
[i never knew spit hurled could feel as warm
as japanese sea]
her arm extended, pointing
north [of all directions, right?]
telling me to go back to the
Lincoln Park zoo, nigger monkey
[my dog didn’t like hers]
maybe i could feel—
and i’m sorry to use a cliché
in a poem, but this is how it felt—
the wind knocked outta me
when a white college bf [check my fb if you really want to know who]
punched me in the gut
while standing in line for IamLegend
because i never did know when to shut up
my mother always said i had that third eye
that i knew what was coming before it did
that she’d catch me in our japanese apt
talking, chatting with her mother
dead six years
if this is true
if God gave me some gift
of vision
then i predict
one day
america will be a place i love living in
and i won’t miss japan so much
because this country
this country must
this country will
reach out its hand to me
and say, ようこそ
meaning welcome
--tmstringfellow
