Black shadow like a bear is moving around the window in a white light emitted by the fluorescent lamp. I can see the shadow throwing his collection in a cardboard box. Radio and kettle, typewriter and the sunset, a box filled with toffee sweets are sealed with tape. I am sitting on the emergency stairway of my apartment and looking at the change of season. Morning has come. The morning saying farewell to a certain season. A drizzle makes my vision blurry. Not by the exhaust gas of the highway. The shadow preparing for departure finds a diary from his bookshelf and reads eagerly. A lull in the wind falls from the past, a skull of the shadow disappears from the window to pick the pages up.

Translucent curtains had been hanging on the window of the shadow. In the night, the shadow yawning in a cotton bathrobe following a shower was seen through. In the summer afternoon, I listened to vinyl of Louis Armstrong repeatedly from his open window. The shadow melting into the sunlight went to his workplace on a taxi. Like a road mirage. There was a thing that I found the shadow in the downtown at dusk and chased him. He vanished into a building with the signboard of foreign cuisine. I peered into the kitchen under preparation from the back door. The shadow was skinning a beast. And he wore the fur and became the flesh of the beast. The shadow as a living corpse bathed in a pot full of boiling water. The shadow evaporated.

I am on the last remote island. The place where an eternal lull tells the time. Living in a shipwreck rusting by sea breeze. I share the kettle, typewriter, toffee and the sunset with the shadow wearing the fur of a beast. “Because the anesthesia is insufficient”, the shadow sobs, “I will decide to forget the seasons while keeping consciousness”. We are listening to the hit parade by the disc jockey of Wolfman Jack intermittently on the radio. “Shall I flow the request for your favorite song in a kettle to the ocean? ” I laugh.

…

hiromi suzuki is a poet, novelist and artist living in Tokyo, Japan. She is the author of Ms. cried, 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (Kisaragi Publishing, 2013), logbook (Hesterglock Press, 2018), INVISIBLE SCENERY (Low Frequency Press, 2018). Her works have been published internationally in poetry journals, literary journals and anthologies.
Web site: https://hiromisuzukimicrojournal.tumblr.com
Twitter : @HRMsuzuki