|
Mr. Shimoe |
In 1965 a small man with a stoop
and timid expression
arrived at our house (courtesy
of the Women’s International League
of Peace and Freedom) with a mission,
a translator, and a twisted claw
where he’d once had a hand.
Also a miraculous jacket
of ash and lace,
its shreds of cloth strung one to the other,
delicate and intricate as spiders' webs.
This the jacket he’d worn
twenty years before as he bicycled
one bright August morning
on his way to work the fields
twenty-five miles outside
the city of Hiroshima.
For seven weeks he lived in our house.
His mission: to hold up his jacket,
in schools, in churches, in people’s parlors,
and tell his story.
To hold up the claw that once was a hand.
To show the crimson roses blooming
on the side of his face and his neck.
Undressing, until naked to the waist,
shirt and suit jacket draped neatly on a chair,
he turned to show the ropes of scars
responsible for his stoop.
Sometimes he wept.
Sometimes the translator wept.
Sometimes the audience wept.
Sometimes he included the detail
of his body’s refusal to make children.
Sometimes details about
other people’s children: babies born
with arms and legs enough for insects,
or no limbs at all, or cleft palates,
or two sets of thumbs, or no stomach,
or a missing anus.
Sometimes he included the detail
of his own missing family.
Into this silence
devoid of either bird song or breath
but thick with dust
he poured his own quiet plea for peace.
copyright 2006
Anna
Balint |
