I lay down the plough and watch the sunset,

another day spent toiling in Okinawa,

fields of bitter melon, fishermen in the bay;

walking achingly back to Ogimi,

like a bent straw of wheat.

I see my grandmother pounding mochi

in the yard & stoic lizards climb the paper walls,

a picture of her husband; yosh, yosh, yosh;

always warning of the Ryukyu wild boar,

while drinking, smoking, laughing like a child.

West to Naha, east to the Pacific;

a compass spins, pointing in all directions,

drifting in the bilge of infested cargo ships,

some hoping for a better life,

others building it here,

among those content with years on repeat.

Arriving in Los Angeles, as the Japanese in 1869;

impoverished farmers who escaped tired soil,

Tokyo expanding to Boyle Heights,

and some return home; are bombed,

shoved into internment camps,

returning to broken glass homes,

all of us thinking about our complicated histories,

as we reluctantly pull the dandelions.

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Brandon Shane is a poet, born in Yokosuka Japan. You can see his work in the Berlin Literary Review, Acropolis Journal, Grim & Gilded,  Sophon Lit, Marbled Sigh, Verdant Journal, Heimat Review, among others. He would later graduate from Cal State Long Beach. Find him on Twitter @Ruishanewrites