M. N. O'Brien

M .  N .   O ' B r i  e n

SHORES OF JAPAN

Panta Rhei

People shuffle themselves down the sidewalk.

I would film this, but you wouldn't feel it

the same way. You have no sense of smell.

How old are your children? They still swing

on those rubber seats held up by chains. I can

take them out, but the weather might change.

Obscure tears revisit your eyes when you're not

looking, and you remember the river with watery

memory, always flowing into streams of change.