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Through the Willows, and: Easter Cherries, and: Gretel, through the wood, and: Heartland, and: Border

Through the Willows, and: Easter Cherries, and: Gretel, through the wood, and: Heartland, and:... P O E T RY Miho Nonaka Through the Willows Bless the cherry that must still bloom in April its trunk scarred with initials, hasty students’ hands Bless the tadpoles that fatten in rice paddies Keep their bodies plump like gray marbles Restore to me and my best friend her lipsticks, my comic books confiscated at the school gate Bless our daikon thighs, pale and plump our meaty calves in thick high socks How our empty bento boxes sang on the way home at dusk— everyone’s secret stop, the local 7-Eleven: pork buns, curry buns, pizza buns, sweet-bean buns Forgive our confusion on spiritual matters: horoscopes, Ouija boards, funerals for insects Have mercy on the whereabouts of our ancestors We’ve committed to memory the Lord’s Prayer in five and seven syllables Do not hold me accountable for those Chinese characters I made up for pop quizzes W INTER 2 018 • THE MIS SOURI RE V IE W 73 Redeem our first sex education, a shadowgraph of the cutout we couldn’t tell where her body started and his body ended e n Th umber of hours we spent guessing each other’s crush (though we don’t say “crush” in Japanese) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Missouri Review University of Missouri

Through the Willows, and: Easter Cherries, and: Gretel, through the wood, and: Heartland, and: Border

The Missouri Review , Volume 41 (4) – Dec 26, 2018

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Publisher
University of Missouri
Copyright
Copyright © The Curators of the University of Missouri.
ISSN
1548-9930

Abstract

P O E T RY Miho Nonaka Through the Willows Bless the cherry that must still bloom in April its trunk scarred with initials, hasty students’ hands Bless the tadpoles that fatten in rice paddies Keep their bodies plump like gray marbles Restore to me and my best friend her lipsticks, my comic books confiscated at the school gate Bless our daikon thighs, pale and plump our meaty calves in thick high socks How our empty bento boxes sang on the way home at dusk— everyone’s secret stop, the local 7-Eleven: pork buns, curry buns, pizza buns, sweet-bean buns Forgive our confusion on spiritual matters: horoscopes, Ouija boards, funerals for insects Have mercy on the whereabouts of our ancestors We’ve committed to memory the Lord’s Prayer in five and seven syllables Do not hold me accountable for those Chinese characters I made up for pop quizzes W INTER 2 018 • THE MIS SOURI RE V IE W 73 Redeem our first sex education, a shadowgraph of the cutout we couldn’t tell where her body started and his body ended e n Th umber of hours we spent guessing each other’s crush (though we don’t say “crush” in Japanese)

Journal

The Missouri ReviewUniversity of Missouri

Published: Dec 26, 2018

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