FOR HANA-SAN by Erin Schalk
Despite a fifteen-hour time difference,
you sent me a message at midnight
— your time —
on a Tuesday.
Your news flickered
across my screen:
By the way,
my mother passed last summer.
My dear friend,
I am heartily sorry.
I have been absent for four years
and have not been a dear friend lately.
As that final summer left us,
I faded into a
self-protective absence,
as you disappeared
behind quiet sorrow.
*
The last night in Okinawa,
we sat cross-legged
on the floor of the izakaya.
The diffused sapphire glow
from the street lamps
refracted in the ripple glass,
splashing across our lacquered table
like floodlights shining on a pool.
You bought a bottle of Dutch Chardonnay
and could not finish your one delicate glass
as you remembered your childhood —
how your fear of marriage grew from
the poverty found in
each exterior and interior crevice
of your family home.
You told me that after your father died,
your mother ran the bento shop.
Before sunrise,
aromas of fatty pork and fried vegetables
wafted to your second-story classroom.
We would see her shadow cross
the frosted door just before
she entered to greet us
with oiled hands
that threw her hair
back into a bandana.
*
In July,
she closed the shop early
to dress us in our yukata.
She swathed us in layers
of rose and silver fabric, cinched
with sky-blue obi,
that she folded into
petaled bows.
As autumn beckoned, you made the decision
to live alone,
and unmarried,
in an apartment across town,
even though
your desire for privacy
transgressed her wishes.
You both struck a compromise:
a matchmaking service
in exchange for
your freedom.
*
As we swallowed the saffron dregs of wine,
you told me I was lucky
and asked how I knew.
I explained that it was only when lingering
doubts lifted.
And the next day,
I crossed the Pacific
to a life with a husband
and future child.
*
My dear friend,
I am heartily sorry.
I never meant
that our lives would
ask you to remember …
… and allow me to forget.
