10 Years: 10 Places

 

Hamamatsu:

Home of unagi pie –– a biscuit made of eel.

 

Iwakuni:

Bridge of Samurai –– beer with strangers, under blossom.

 

Burracho’s Bar:

Grilled sparrow on a stick. Flirtation with the ‘Master’, whose name I don’t remember.

 

Nara:

Home of mountain deer. We drank amazake –– warm porridgey-rice wine.

 

Miajima:

Pursued by deer again. An island, where we ate Hirsohima oysters.

 

Yumigahama:

Bow beach — so shaped, we barbequed mackerel and got engaged.

 

Kyoto: 

By taxi to Kinkakuji. The driver, in white gloves, holding an umbrella for my mother.

 

Fukuoka:

Fu; not fuck. Karaoke ’till 5a.m. and hangovers in a hot-spring.

 

Ryukyu:

Home of Awamori –– an Okinawan brew, sometimes with a snake in.

 

Shizuoka:

‘Still hill’, located on a fault line. My home for 10 years.

 

 

An earlier version of this poem appeared in the November 2018 issue of Silver Needle Press. Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana came to writing poetry last year, although she recited poetry from age five, pursuing Speech and Drama training, with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Last year she was shortlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize 2018. Her poems have appeared in Snakeskin, Typishly, Silver Needle Press, Eunoia Review and are forthcoming in Mothers Always Write and Streetlight Magazine. In March 2019, she will be attending the AWP Conference and Book Fair in Portland, Oregon, to read her poetry and participate in a Silver Needle Press book signing.