Lovers in Anime
1. ] couple on elevated trains. In hot springs. Libraries.
Apartments lit by the Ferris wheel on the plaza.
2. ] Sakuras splice with birds alighting: a montage
of petals and a round-mouthed O.
3. ] The person you loved will lead you
to Hamada City or the bamboo
whitened by snow.
4. ] Windchimes remind you of the shore.
5. ] Simple equations, but also the way a girl’s pink hair
satins through your palm.
6. ] Places you meet turn semaphore:
the tree a shrine blackened by fire.
7. ] Women as half-demons / half-gods.
School festivals. Texture of red bean paste.
8. ] Swords hidden in a tea-length dress.
9. ] If one of you bears witness, the other will haul
you back from the precipice.
10. ] Vending machine tea solves nothing,
but treat it like a balm.
11. ] For every azalea or water wheel, for every courtyard,
every alley crosshatched, someone waits
to confess.
12. ] The Golden Mean does not apply to bodies.
Eyes span larger distances and breasts
point perpendicular to the ground.
13. ] Train copper strips around pine: bonsai
grow in glazed ceramic.
14. ] Hoshino. Yumi. Aiko. Whatever your name,
only the suffix (-san or –chan) matters
on a lover’s tongue.
15. ] If you never admit it, the one you love
loves someone else who loves the person
that loves you back.
16. ] Ground you claim, cutting clusters
of sunburned weeds, divining patterns
on the smooth backs of stones—
17. ] The storm drain clouding with letters.
18. ] Graduation: swift bravura, heel turns.
The talcum odor.
19. ] Something trails out of limelight. The violin strums.
