Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Tamiko Beyer
Shichi–Go–San
Tokyo, November 15, 1977
Mama pours raw, salty yolk over steaming rice scooped
from rice cooker to my blue and white bowl. Today,
an ancient celebration in a country that still chokes
on the aftertaste of the mushroom cloud.
We receive chalky sweets, our pink tongues
sticky. We, who have survived three years, five
years, seven—small and breakable bodies still
breathing in a world where the ground moves without
warning, upright buildings crashing to rubble in the space
of an exhale. Where an afternoon of play in slanted
sunlight shatters with a misstep—bruised flesh, cracked
femur, blood. Where noisy, trapped flies
bang against the window until exhaustion leaves
them belly-up on the sill. I watch them wave
delicate legs in the air while our neighbor
bundles me into a pink silk kimono with its whisper
of cherry blossom print and mothball scent.
She fastens layers and layers of fabric with hidden
strings, pulls the obi across my baby belly, blooming
the bow. Pink flowers pinned tight against my scalp
and white socks pulled over my five toes and five toes.
Right hand in Mama’s, left hand in Papa’s, I clatter
in shiny geta towards the shrine. At the corner
three Jizo statues with old-man
Crab Orchard Review ◆ 25