Rachel Rose
What We Heard About the Japanese
We heard they would jump from buildings
at the slightest provocation: a low mark
On an exam, a lovers' spat
or an excess of shame.
We heard they were incited by shame,
not guilt. That they
Loved all things American,
mistrusted anything foreign.
We heard their men liked to buy
schoolgirls' underwear
And their women
did not experience menopause or other
Western hysterias. We heard
they still preferred to breastfeed,
Carry handkerchiefs, ride bicycles
and dress their young like Victorian
Pupils. We heard that theirs
was a feminine culture. We heard
That theirs was an example of extreme
patriarchy. That rape
Didn't exist on these islands. We heard
their marriages were arranged, that
They didn't believe in love. We heard
they were experts in this art above all others.
That frequent earthquakes inspired insecurity
and lack of faith. That they had no sense of irony.
We heard even faith was an American invention.
We heard they were just like us under the skin.
What the Japanese Perhaps Heard
Perhaps they heard we don't understand them
very well. Perhaps this made them
Pleased. Perhaps they heard we shoot
Japanese students who ring the wrong
Bell at Hallowe'en. That we shoot
at the slightest provocation: a low mark
On an exam, a lovers' spat, an excess
of guilt. Perhaps they wondered
If it was guilt we felt at the sight of that student
bleeding out among our lawn flamingoes,
Or something recognizable to them,
something like grief. Perhaps
They heard that our culture
has its roots in desperate immigration
And lone men. Perhaps they observed
our skill at raising serial killers,
That we value good teeth above
good minds and have no festivals
To remember the dead. Perhaps they heard
that our grey lakes are deep enough to swallow cities,
That our landscape is vast wheat and loneliness.
Perhaps they ask themselves if, when grief
Wraps its wet arms around Montana, we would not prefer
the community of archipelagoes
Upon which persimmons are harvested
and black fingers of rock uncurl their digits
In the mist. Perhaps their abacus echoes
the shape that grief takes,
One island
bleeding into the next,
And for us grief is an endless cornfield,
silken and ripe with poison.
