Out of memory—
There is a moment when language transcends this physical form. A poet is the words she embodies. You repeat this sentence, hoping for divine intervention from this colonialized / assimilated life. The horror of looking in the mirror and being betrayed by what you see. All this and not resembling. The change has come / not once, not once, not once a border here. Everything comes up in this once womb once memory trip. The repetition may be jarring, but these are imbrications in a shingled existence. To write of this occasion does not alleviate the pain or loss.
Another composed copper sky. Memories erode. The slippage in landslide. The pain of yesterday replaced by the pain of today. There was a time when you knew nothing of Tōkyōdaikūshū. A foreign word / a world away. And now it is. And now its aftermath a living sculpture. The days go by and recall functions as it does. The pain of yesterday replaced by the pain of today. Every continent an appendage known only to itself.
Memory is all one body. Her stories embedded in you. Some emblazoned on the heart. Some stitched / a scar’s thread. The way time warps this memory’d body. Some memories have already vanished. The black hole of minds.
Memory is living / this living memory. A slip knot pulled to release. Beyond wishes. Beyond the language caught in the mouth. Tongue swept the teeth of ruins. Syllabary light the way. This moving memorī / looping in and spilling out. Even errors in recall reflect a certain kind of life. Where daily glimpses trill. A horizontal thought above our heads like birds in flight. Margins wrinkle. Messages in transit airs. The migration home.
Should this moment die / it dies a star’s death. A supernova burst of light. Belonging to tomorrow.
Dear Mama. I promise to listen to what you have said. To remember what you have seen. To write what you can no longer say. Dear Mama. Dear Mama. I promise.
This is from the chapbook MAMA by Michelle Naka Pierce (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/mama-by-michelle-naka-pierce/
Michelle Naka Pierce is the author of eleven titles, including Continuous Frieze Bordering Red, awarded Fordham University’s Poets Out Loud Editor’s Prize, as well as Quarter Light, a celebration of friendship in the equinox/solstice season. Born in Japan and raised in the US, her poetry and hybrid texts often embody the complexity of “border identity.” Pierce teaches in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University and lives in Colorado with poet Chris Pusateri and Shigin Sensei Michiko Masuda Pierce. Her recent work Mama, a poem thirty years in the making, honors her mother’s resilience and survival of the war.
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