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Jamie Edgecombe

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Gaijin*

                                                            I speak.
-My voice carries further than a cultural distance-
This time
an infinite amount of months ago
I was Italy,
I had never seen it before but knew it existed
like Milkyway galaxies.
I stirred coffee
a swirl of froth bitterly brushing my lips,

but Sake drops
                 and rice bombs
lack the benefit of hindsight;
                                                       (I drift...)
what will I miss-
floating amongst coral reef places;
                 Nippon’s small rapids
great colossuses
                 stirring the world,
flesh encapsulated worlds
                 boundlessly buzzing,
myself a mere molecule in the Sea of Japan,
an obliviously toned ambassador?
                 Another country
a different universe,
                 a reinvention of my out-look
a new birth,
                 as the Arctic did in ‘97.

What will I miss?
                 Majority?
But what will I most enjoy?
                 The uniqueness.

 

*Gaijin is the Japanese word for ‘foreigner’.

Page(s) 39

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