Oboete Iru (To Remember)

I know the neon red
of Shinjuku streets,
the shochu scent of izakaya nights,
and the white bright of standing
on Odaiba land.
Hot pink litters the
hollows of Harajuku
and decorates the kimono
wrapping my pearled, powdered skin.
I remember the liquid clear
of a shared drink surrounded
by sound at Maniac Love and
the soothing buckwheat shade of
soba under a lonely grass-roofed village.
I recall the color
of sliced melon in a paper room,
the calming midori of Aizu hills
that filled the bath, and the
unusual absence of cold, dark blackness
in the sky of Japan.