you forget how your father’s finger looks like
always hidden behind the sanshin chimi, black pick that
engulfs the nail to the first joint, curved and hard
uncannily like gnarly claws of an oversized raven
you remember after his fifth song
and fourth mug of beer
his gruff voice telling you
the ūjiru male string is the lowest, the biggest
baritone of the group, tough as nails
the mījiru female string is the lightest, its voice
a feathery twang, wound up, pressure afflicted
then there’s the middle one with no gender
at all, neither daughter nor son, male nor female
just middle
nakajiru, middle, you say, trying to remember
the last time he visited from the mainland
and, yet — trying not to remember, not to think
of the missed appointments, the work-engaged
cancelled flights, tickets to jazz concerts postponed
and his finger, what did it look like
when he peeled off his pick to type?
to pen another email of cold, begged
forgiveness, not an ounce of sincerity
bleeding from font to screen
the chimi hits the female string
a voice warbles in the dark, shrill
accusatory, your dad’s finger pointing
towards the snake-skin body, hollowed wood–
and another ghastly finger arises, slender,
pointing right at your dad, at his long nose
beneath his voice, a tenuous harmony
an ache behind the words, a piercing screech
that only those who share his genes can hear
your eyes strain from the domestic discord
a pulse shakes your feet, spilled orion-brand beer
splashes off your legs, lands on soy-sauce-
stained floor, the tumbler on the table warbles
you can’t help but think of the scent of passion
fruit, sweet perfume, the metallic clang in your
mother’s pleading voice, ordering him to stay
fruitless like commanding wind to quarter itself in the
red-roofed akagāra houses, not blowing, not shifting
not singing out its longings while striking three successive
strings, not winding its wrist again, the sagging
skin at the forearms, the crumpled finger hidden behind the
black pick warbling sorrow — as the air in the cavity vibrates —
something big and wholesome deflates
loses its integrity and shrivels
like a bird beak pecking at a balloon
he marks the end of the min’yō with one blazon
strike at the nakajiru again, a deafening quaver as the
spectral finger points to you, silence in the room as the
note shivers
