One Night in Hikone

We were feeling bold when we stumbled

into that bar (so long a topic of conversation)

with our drunken bliss and broken

language. Yes, we stood out. But

the American drinks they offered were a

novelty to us, too. We’d brought our own

beer in a plastic grocery bag, but

they didn’t say anything as we snuck one

now and again, mixing the cans on the table

with the empty glasses that we’d bought. They

clapped politely with each song that

we sang (the master and his friend at the bar)

and I like to think we amused them

with our antics and our words, a bastardized

form – a lovechild – of their language

and ours.

With each song you sang, with every drink

we had, our words became looser and

everyone knows actions follow words. Is that

why when I showed you my burned finger you

took it in your hand, drew it to your lips and

kissed it, assuring me that now it would get better?

Was it just my imagination that when you sang

you looked to me?

Wandering back, what prompted you to

put your arm around my waist and keep it there

and why did I put mine around you?

Such a mood must have captured us as we

laughed, embraced, and stumbled our way home.

And later, as we lay fallen, what gravity

drew our fingers together, entwining and stroking,

hidden in the shadow of the cupboard

above our heads, our bodies not even

touching. It is this kind of intimacy that

I remember. Whatever else happened over

that long summer (the friendships forged,

the arguments spat) it is this memory

that I frame.

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