Ohio, and I imagine her
walking the train line,
tracks narrowed in the distance.
Through her soles,
the platform’s slats. She feels
their unevenness
in the flats of her feet. Noon-
day heat and the wool
of her jacket’s itchy.
She’s got a bob, it’s 1943
and the war’s on. No one
in the station looks
like her, but everyone’s
looking at her.
No explanation but the one
in government-issued print.
National Student Relocation
Council. Early Release.
The sentry in his watch-
tower, barbed-wire fence
and Stars and Stripes flapping
in the wind. From across
the tracks, a man (here,
imagination does the work
history’s lost) approaches, finger
bared, a blunt accusation.
Aren’t you a Jap? The long
explanation—why she’s out,
whose side she’s on.
The nations we pledge
at odds, leaving us to make
up the difference.
This story’s old, the woman
—dead, papers boxed
in a back closet. I’ve seen them.
Early Release.
The government-issued ID number.
In camp, it’s said, they cut
gardens into Arkansas desert,
fixed rocks into the flat face
of the earth and irrigated
bean rows to feed their families.
Healthy vines appeared
where none should have
grown; tiny buds coaxed
from the earth, tendrils
that spooled runners
through dust.
When the order came
to pack up and return
home, the authorities found
every curtain drawn
shut. Every barrack
floor swept clean.
from Isako IsakoFind more by Mia Ayumi Malhotra at the library
Copyright © 2018 Mia Ayumi Malhotra
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.