Japanese Ghosts Don’t Have Feet

On the night of my grandfather’s funeral

I heard things. I could tell

it was a march—by the regularized footsteps,

by what sounded like pebbles crushed beneath

their waraji, straw sandals.

It was the hour of ushi-mitsu, between two

and three in the morning, the hour all cheap

samurai movies say the spirit world

merges with ours. But they, the marching ones,

who came closer and closer, had feet!

Couldn’t they choose a different ghostly path?

Why go through a thirteen-year-old boy’s

bedroom, tiptoeing around comic books and

pencil drawings of the girl I had a crush on

at the time—where were they going anyway?

I could tell there were monks—by the striking

canes, once every two breaths; the bells,

shrill and high, jingled in octaves, reverberating.

The march went through me, and they were

chanting, “Spare me, spare me,” without

emotion, in one tone. Among them,

I thought I heard my grandfather, too.

Ghosts, if you can listen—if you make your way

to the United States. I’m here in West Lafayette,

Indiana, on the sixth floor of a pale orange building,

where I sit with Itoen green tea and own the only

refrigerator with pickled plums stored inside it.

Take me away, too, if you like.