The mushroom shed

If they come back
my mother will materialize
in her armchair, a book
fluttering its new white wings
 
but my father will walk through the garden
looking critically at everything:
the unswept leaves, the ground elder
sneaking on to the lawn.
 
I think the shy scalps
of the carrots will please him,
also the birdtable
with its offering of crumbled rice
 
but the moment I wait for
is when he eases open the door
and steps into darkness.
 
He’s back on the mountainside
among the mushroom plots
roped off for neighbours.
The old watchman, Koma, lets him through.
 
The smell of the mushrooms
is everywhere — he kneels
among the braille of pineneedles
hoping to uncover their whole bald world–
 
as here, by the empty trays,
I watch his fingers silently questioning
and, little again, I crouch
close to him, almost behind him,
to see what he sees.
 

Dorothy Yamamoto

in collection Honshū Bees, 2018, Templar Poetry,
ISBN 978-1-9111323-8-7