Japan, Autumn

Ikebana class one morning: arranging bulky kiku,

burnt orange kinmokusei, ume—Japanese apricots

eaten in winter. Nothing lasts, our teacher said.

She lived alone, side-street house with fusuma

instead of walls, sliding screens allowing her

to configure space for different occasions.

She criticized our arrangements, redid them

with a smile—kiku here, with space, ume there,

with space. Space—necessary and good.

Do you understand? Absence an object itself.

Hold onto space, she said, taking photographs

of our work that was really her work by then.

I cannot accept the space. I must accept the space.

You whispered, What does she mean by space?

Japanese architects deliberately inserted mistakes

into their designs to appease the gods,

who believed only they are perfect. We do this

with memory—forgetting, mottling as salve

for the soul. The sweet relief of broken memory.

In Tokyo, we argued in Ramen Alley about selfies

but really about your potholes of memory

dirt-crusted with skewed views, facts, names

of preschool kids swapped for movie stars.

Your brain famous for its limbic system—

hippocampus, amygdala, cingulate gyrus,

mammillary body, all diagramed years ago.

If not the brain, then at least decorative facts.

Those days in which you recited dates, ancient

Edo pottery, dynasties of information,

explained with sketches. Now forgotten. Or,

you held onto details we don’t need now.

In Kyoto we walked along the canal

and tossed in handmade paper flowers

for luck, each one slipping, current-bound.

What to do? Hold onto washi fibers

from the gampi tree’s bark or let go,

mitsumata shrub in the form of paper stars

now floating away. No matter.

You will pocket neither the paper

nor the word for it. Washi. Washi.

This is what we need: take only

what your hands can keep. Maybe that

is pain’s definition: Only one person

retaining memory for two. How burdensome

remember, and even then, this water

only knows us as shadows. Both of us

leaning, willow bent, over what we’ve thrown.

Oh those flowers we recognize but cannot name.