Just a Thursday afternoon
wanting to set off the bell in your room
and turning the dial of the phone.


                                   A birthday I spend thinking
                                   how a whole year is so short,
                                   a single day so long.


Lunch on a sandy beach.
An egg sandwich left untouched
bothers me somehow.

                                 
                                   “Isn’t it cold?” you say.
                                   “It’s cold all right,” comes the answer.
                                   And with someone to answer comes warmth.


“Phone me again,” you say
and put down the receiver.
And I want to phone you again
right now.


                                   We walk along the sandy beach
                                   and kiss
                                   while a 5.30 p.m. Mount Fuji looks on.


A loneliness like snow
falling from the land where my mother lives.
Here I am, in Tokyo.


                                   The dent I notice
                                   in the tube of toothpaste
                                   after you have gone
                                   is new this morning.


A sea that seems to say
all the lies I have told in my life
don’t matter one bit.