opened at the airport. In Japan,
I’d been spoilt rotten by the abeyance
of the chasm. A pothole blinked,
at most, ground deflated
for a mirroring tadpole, that sailed away
in a burbling gutter.
Shinto deities giggled behind
the shoulders of pudgy toddlers
in petal carriages, until temples on hills
smudged through a strawberry sundown.
Next to the gate, four would-be matrons
and I look up from our books:
a blond woman in a video chat
whose arm must be going dead with a toddler
writhing and shouting. Into the ravine
for an emergency landing. Whoosh! Peep.
“We’re taking a plane!” they clamour.
Duh, we all are. My plane
is already roaring. While I scale
letters, my celestial ears replug.
Just recently I’ve joined the ranks
of women with invisibility cloaks.
Does that make me a Shinto blessing?
In the case of male attention, thumbs up.
I’m happy to see these readers.
One raises her eyebrows.
A Kindle smacks into a lap without safety belt.
I gesture Turn down the volume
at the young woman. It’s not as if I can’t listen
to your child’s wee discourse.
According to my friends, motherhood would
have fitted me. They said it for the benefit
of the child. If I’d allowed it to live,
perhaps the chasm would have impacted me
less as a non-mother feels towards mothers,
than to space invaders.
In Japan, you generally don’t see parents
with a large retinue of kids. It’s just one,
two max and they’re small volume.
Something to strive for: quietly going about things.
A hotel owner came across as a mother figure.
She shuffled over in her silk trouser suit
to a francophone couple to tell them
about the bus service. Then she briskly waddled
to where I stood. Everything she did came out
in a gentle voice, like she was my kami.
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