If you had asked the reason, I’d have said,
“Why, because!” for I did not know, but I was not
wrong. Surely the black sky with the city lights
in the grey towers were there, calling to me.
Where? Why, in Japan! I knew because
of the word Japan, because Nobu chased
me around the red, sticky ice cream shop tables
when I trusted the man who’d rescued me
from the branchless tree enough to play a trick.

I saw in the glinting grins between his friends as they brought to me,
of all people, pikachu masks not sold here in the states.
In the brow the stuffed gorilla Daddy brought me had. G was so strong.
Even in the reflection in waters in Japanese gardens that I never would have left-
I wanted to go, okay? But I never did, and so now I can’t tell
if this is a poem about Japan, or on me, or on
my home.