Appleblossom

Clamber out of the morning river with water beads like fish eggs clung to your pubis the calluses on your buttocks from sitting, writing on flat rocks, your goose-pimpled thighs—the bumpy tongues of two dogs licking each other—and river-slather and slather at the edge of my mouth. You are smiling, straining out your hair, flicking your hands, and then see me watching you with the cloth and pots I was taking to wash. Before I have time to be embarrassed, the smile lifts into your eyes. Each “Appleblossom” is a verse translation from the Japanese of a short selection from the notebooks of Chiri, Bashō’s traveling companion during the years between Withered Chestnuts and Travelogue of Weatherbeaten Bones .