Each night at sundown since I was a small girl, I have sat by the sliding glass window in our cabin and looked out on the sea, waiting for my father's boat to slide up over the horizon and point toward our harbor. Then I hop across the tatami mats, stop at the doorway long enough to slip on my sandals, race down to the beach, and wait half an hour for my father's boat to creep slowly to shore. This is always a busy time at our beach. Dozens of black dots in the water are crawling toward shore in the semi-darkness. Women, children, and old men seem to sense which dot is their own and jam the shoreline waiting patiently for husbands, brothers, and sons. Above the din of oars clanking and children laughing I can hear my father's voice reaching out to me across the water, always buoyant, always happy. Because I have no mother or brothers or sisters, the neighboring fishermen and their wives help us slide the boat upon the beach. We must leave it high enough to miss the tides during the night or it will wash out to sea, Then our nightly chores commence. First, we must carry the fish up to our cabin, and this takes many trips. My father can carry two big wooden buckets loaded with fish, one bucket on each end of a pole balanced across his shoulders, but I can carry only one small bucket each trip. Next, we clean the fish and sort them for the fish peddler who will come tomorrow with his oxen and two-wheeled cart to take our fish to the market in Tokyo. Because some of the fish aren't very nice for market, I will cook them with sweet potatoes and carrots for our dinner. Most nights we also have rice if we haven't used all our ration for the month. Until last year I would build a fire with charcoal to heat water for my father's bath. But now have a new bath house down by the shrine, and my father and I walk down there every night after dinner and take baths with our neighbors. I am glad of this because my father did not talk much to our neighbors before we had the new bath house. Tomorrow I will not have to get up before daylight, roll our sleeping mats away, and cook for my father as I usually do. My father is going with me to Yokohama where I will board the big ship that will take me to my new home in America. 4 My husband says that tomorrow will be the last morning that I will have beans, tara roots, fish, and dried seaweed for breakfast. I will have good, rich American food. I have been learning to eat with a knife and fork, but it is still difficult for me. I know I will like my new home with its rich American furniture. The Americans are not poor like the people in my village. My husband says that his mustering out pay from the army will buy a plantation in Georgia larger than our entire village. I have read that some Americans dislike orientals, but I will make them like me. And my husband will be happier there because he does not like the army. The officers were repeatedly locking him in their jail for some reason. I have joined my husband's church, and must remember to go down to the great statue of Buddha and pray to him and ask him to help me be a good Christian. I think I will be a little homesick for my village of Gumyogi. THE MIND CAGE Larry Peek Shapeless wisps Of blue thought Stream from neuron to neuron in my head Meaningless idiom Prods nothing through emptiness; But it isn't empty. A hollow bubble has mist inside. Where jagged letters And purple phrases are pinned; Where right is caged in wrong, And wrong is a paradigm of right. The mind grows backward into greyed soul. 5