It's 1997.
My mom is standing over the sink, rinsing out a plastic gallon-jug of milk.
The kitchen is sunny.

A photograph, taken at dusk, of Tokyo & Mt. Fuji looming behind,
a line, running horizontally across the middle of a photograph;
below it, the city: a field of lit buildings & streets,
buildings: blocks & cylinders of rock, metal, glass and light—
streets: human rivers of car-lights,
the glowing orange Tokyo Tower rises like a great sword to fight the sky—

above it, the mountain: great, wide cone of rock & soil, with a cap of snow,
wisps floating up its ridges,
the cold, purple sunlight kissing its backside;
his peak is looking down at the city.
It is waiting,
like a grandfather,
while the wild, excited boy, pours Elmer’s glue on orange construction paper,
         ruining the rug,
the mountain is waiting.
The mountain is stronger,
and when the children move out,
he will rock in his chair,
as always.

Blaze of a rubble-car a man in faded jeans shouts, hurls a bottle -- smash -- a thousand shards of
        broken glass shine orange on crowded street.

Shouts, cries, infants sobbing loud---sirens, car alarms, a man ***** back his hand,
         holding a brick---the crack of a driver's-side window breaking. Wild yells---everyone is
         sprinting. Fire & wailing.

Sunny afternoon---birds sing in treetops; a woman under shade on sunlit grass in brown rags & an
         old hijab sobs over a slab of concrete, decorated with flowers
and a photograph
with a golden frame.

A field of barley,
shining to the horizon—
it sways with the wind.

Looking at the bay,
fog blankets the lake,
ships zig-zag, leaving trails.

The sky is clear & bue,
sea aqua to the horizon—
a shark thuds the hull.

We chased the heavens
out of the sky, into space.
They start on the ground.