Shame
(... in a Japanese internment camp in World War II)
When I laughed at him
My mother was washing me
From the tap
In the paved yard
By the room
In which we slept.
When I laughed
And pointed to his swollen abdomen
She hushed me
With a hand to my arm
As she cupped water
From tap
To my back.
When I laughed,
I think he smiled,
Sharing in the moment.
He was younger than I,
Perhaps three years old,
Smaller,
Sitting in a basin
For a bath,
His stomach absurdly large.
I thought he had gorged
And bloated himself with greed.
He died that night.
From hunger, my mother said.
Bewildered I spoke
Of his belly big with food.
But it lied,
She said,
And he died
But of what she wouldn't say.
Though years have passed,
His smile haunts me yet,
And still I feed my shame.
(... in a Japanese internment camp in World War II)
When I laughed at him
My mother was washing me
From the tap
In the paved yard
By the room
In which we slept.
When I laughed
And pointed to his swollen abdomen
She hushed me
With a hand to my arm
As she cupped water
From tap
To my back.
When I laughed,
I think he smiled,
Sharing in the moment.
He was younger than I,
Perhaps three years old,
Smaller,
Sitting in a basin
For a bath,
His stomach absurdly large.
I thought he had gorged
And bloated himself with greed.
He died that night.
From hunger, my mother said.
Bewildered I spoke
Of his belly big with food.
But it lied,
She said,
And he died
But of what she wouldn't say.
Though years have passed,
His smile haunts me yet,
And still I feed my shame.