For Ewa

There used to be this road
to get to grandma’s house.
It didn’t pass through woods
So there was small chance of getting lost.

And there were no wolves to trick us either.

It was just one road
Fort Weaver, I think it was called,
And it didn’t wind or curve
It just divided up the sugar caned flats
Like the cut of a cake knife.
Beyond, below the setting sun,
Dry coral and scrub brush
Folded up to the Waianae range.

It was hard staying up
All the way there,
Especially lying in the trunk
Of our red-stained station wagon Pinto
Baking like gingerbread.

Somewhere in the middle
I’d peek out the melting glass
And nine out of ten
I’d see the cube building
Signaling Barber’s Point.
Falling back
beside my snoring sister
I imagined the world was
In that box.
If I ever got a chance to go there
And stuck my hand in through its window
Giant fingers would reach from the east
And pluck me off the edge of the universe.
If I took a step through the door
I’d be halfway to the moon.

We’d always arrive late
For monthly otsutome
And grandpa and grandma
Would already be crowing their twenty one
Ashiki harai’s
Out of tune and out of rhythm
To the clapping furoshikis.
Dogs would probably join in
In any other neighborhood,
But out near Hau Bush
Only the roosters would lend a throat.

We’d creep in and kneel seiza
In some corner,
Sweat pinched and leaking behind our knees
And pretend to do the service sincerely.
At the ichiretsu sumashite part
My brother and I would part our hands
Extra wide
Like karate chops
And our sidelong eyes would laugh
Even if our mouths kept lip-synching.

After grandma’s sermon about
The proper positioning of men and women
it was lunch.
I barely touched the “old folk’s
Country style food”: gobo kimpira
And that stuff that looked like a slug
Tied with a rubber band.
I drank two or three cans of grape soda
Instead.

While the grown ups watched TV and talked
we’d sneak into the cramped potted yard
there were always cats to chase
(once my brother even caught one by the tail
and whirled it like a lillyhammer)
and there were black hens sneaking under
the fence to lay surprise eggs in the corner.

That was the grandma’s house I remember.

But everything changes, and nothing lasts forever.
Nowadays, golf courses and cookie cutter houses
and strip malls
sit where the sugar cane once held sway.
The wolf finally found Ewa, it seems
He ate grandma’s town and landscape
And dressed it in new clothes.
And all I can say is:
“What large developments you have!”

Well, I guess everyone needs a home.
Places to stay and sleep and dream
They need it more than
I need to remember.

And maybe in a Toyota Corolla,
Gridlocked in Ewa bound traffic,
buckled in a carseat,
a toddler between naps
gazes out the tinted windows,
Sees in all the neat new rows of houses
A toy universe that he can swat at and hold:
a background for all of his
beginnings.