What kind of trees
were they that
broke the color–

all tall and green
and dancing
in the slow sunlight
of an April afternoon?

Women in blue
kimonos stood
beneath the
delicate branches
snapping pictures
digital and bright.

Children played,
young mother’s
strolled, stooped
old men finished
with their lives
sat on stone benches.

An artist crouched
in a flower bed
like a wounded animal;
linen canvas stained
with a furious red.

I had come here to meet a
god and found instead a man.

We are not seen by the people we love,
but are loved by the people who see us.

That afternoon,
five thousand miles
from my home,
someone saw me
and asked where
I was from in
perfect English.