For women only
perfume,
rubbing shoulders,
we rattle silently over the tracks
blouses, tucked bags, even powdered chins,
up too close to really see;
we sense only relief
we smell no greasy beards or sweaty suits or
beer breath of the morning after _
this morning commuter train
"josei senyo sha"
reserved
for women only,
introduced to protect the gentle sex
from those groping dark hands
preying prying fingers, stroking thigh,
poking panties,
pretending to be penises
right in public transport,
"josei senyo sha"
this is the kindness of Japanese society:
let chikan go unchecked,
forgiven for their mischief,
and give us, women, this special spot
farthest from the action
farthest from the ticket gates
the first car up front,
and the most dangerous
if we crash
About Me
- Yuri Kageyama
- Poet, writer in Tokyo. "The New and Selected Yuri _ Writing From Peeling till Now" Ishmael Reed Publishing Co. 2011. "Peeling" I. Reed Press. Poems, stories, essays in "Y'Bird" "Pow Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience _ Short Fiction from Then to Now" "San Francisco Stories" "On a Bed of Rice" "Konch" "Breaking Silence" "Greenfield Review" "Beyond Rice" "River Styx" "Other Side River" "Yellow Silk" "Stories We Hold Secret" "MultiAmerica" and other publications. Read with Ishmael Reed, Shuntaro Tanikawa, Geraldine Kudaka, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Russel Baba, Seamus Heaney, Shozu Ben, Winchester Nii Tete, Eric Kamau Gravatt, Takenari Shibata, Toshinori Takimoto, Teruyuki and Haruna Kawabata, Keiji Kubo, Yumi Miyagishima, Carl Freire, Abel Coelho, Yuri Matsueda. "Talking TAIKO" a film by Yoshiaki Tago documents her poetry. "A Back Alley Asian American Love Story of Sorts" by Niccolo Caldararo of her story was shown at the San Francisco and New York Asian American film festivals, won awards at the 1986 Palo Alto Film Festival, 1987 Ann Arbor Film Festival, 1988 Onion City Film Festival. Magna cum laude Cornell University, M.A. the University of California Berkeley.
2 comments:
this is so sad and so true. but how many japanese women would identify with this way of expressing their feelings, I wonder...
Thanks for leaving your comment. I wonder, too, yet I sometimes think it doesn't matter because we have to keep on, no matter. We really can't hope to speak for everyone, even a whole category of people, eg., Japanese women. Or anybody else. But we can try to be honest to what we feel and hope for the best.
Post a Comment