We follow a loose thread from the hem
of a cotton dress to a border—
the vast rim of vanished children in the arms of unknown
nurses, their cries rising unanswered—
zone of slippage between life and life
repository and keep and dump of treasured and wasted
things, unfulfilled vows, the cat gone missing—
and all those on this earth baptized only by the waters of kindness—
Oh, Reiko, tell me the story again—your grandfather,
home on his last furlough from the Pacific war,
the black lacquer chopsticks flashing as he taught
his small daughter how to hold one grain of rice.