The Nanking Safetyzone
by Wing Tek Lum
darting, filled with crazed hope
her voice so choked, past sobbing
past exhaustion and despair
that she can barely muster a whisper
her plea hoarse and deliberate
as she shoves through the ornate gate
through a narrow opening of cast iron
the bundle of her young son
just old enough to walk
but not yet weaned
wrapped tightly in a large padded jacket
a long scarf and woolen cap
squeezing him through the grating
into the surprised arms of strangers
those already crowded around camps inside
fortunate enough to have arrived earlier
inside the sanctuary walls
these walls shielding them from plunder and rape
the slaughter outside
even of infants bayoneted
or their heads dashed to the ground
in front of parents
an imaginable horror to this mother
now desperate to complete her last act
and then race away from the wall
vowing never to look back
as if it would be bad luck
her will so strongly focused
even against her own maternal instincts
that she could at all costs
care for him forever
but now she knows that this can never be so
and so for this one final chance
she takes control of her son’s life
by giving him up
his survival with better odds than her own
a lone woman on the street
now unburdened and resigned
stealing away through the rubble of her wounded city.
before the night that soon will come.
Wing Tek Lum is a Hawaiʻi businessman and poet. His first collection of poetry, Expounding the Doubtful Points, was published by Bamboo Ridge Press in 1987. His latest work is a book of documentary poetry based on the Nanjing Massacre. The Nanjing Massacre: Poems will be available to purchase this Summer 2013 at the Bamboo Ridge Press website. Check the website for one of Wing Tek Lum’s many readings and appearances.
Smoke
by Teal Takayama
The night after his death
I went to bed in silence,
more aware of my body,
aware of every step and movement.
I could feel the action in every
solemn joint. It continued that way
for a while, I felt everything
and it was exhausting.
I’d think of that one time when
we were on the back steps,
another cold night. We were
smoking and watching the smoke
drift away above the bushes,
breathing and watching our breath fade.
Then we’d watch it all, the transient white
separating until it disappeared out
of the range of the weak streetlight.
“The way you can tell the difference,” he said,
“is that breath disappears in two seconds.”
He was right, and so for the rest of the time
I would exhale the condensation
and count it, one, two,
gone. Meanwhile he watched,
the smoke from his cigarette carried
high. Now I think about you every time
I see my breath.
I never felt as strongly as you did,
never understood what you were thinking about
when you just watched.
Years later I still don’t know, I’m still
counting breaths while you watch, somewhere,
smoking. I can see your smoke still rising
into the night, past the bushes,
past the trees, higher. Until
it has disappeared out of the light,
out of the range of my vision.
Until it is just the smoke,
separating from my breath,
rising higher, higher,
one, two, gone.
Teal Takayama is from Pearl City, Hawaiʻi. She studied writing under Lois Ann Yamanaka and attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She currently works on federal policy as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C.
