The Language Inside (49 page)

but for Cambodian refugees

               facing land mines

               and bullets

               starvation and disease

and for tsunami survivors

               facing radiation

               and typhoons

               sunken land and floods

I think it’s more like

hyakukorobi hyakuichioki

a hundred times fall down

a hundred and one times get up

at school the next day

I look for Samnang in the halls

but don’t see him anywhere

at Model UN

Jae-Sun cheers

when I say I’ll probably be staying

the full year

then Monica suggests

we all go skating next weekend

at some rink that has public hours

but I’ve only skated a couple times in my life

at the rink in Yokohama by the Red Brick Warehouse

and I swear I can still feel the bruises

so I just say
maybe

Jae-Sun appears at my locker

and walks with me to the bus

talking all about New York

and the conference

and his cousins there

and K-Town where the Korean food

is best and how he’ll take me there

someday

I’m not sure

what that’s supposed to mean

or how I feel

about this attention

on Tuesday at lunch I find Tracy

and tell her my idea

for Dance for Tohoku

and there in the noisy cafeteria

I think she’ll dismiss it

as incompatible with the club

but she listens, then suggests

we move into the courtyard

where it’s quieter

and then she says

well, a full program

takes a long time to prepare

so I don’t know, maybe we could try

to do it by March 11 . . . 

and I’m thinking

               not till then?

but fortunately I hold my tongue

because next Tracy says

in the meantime

maybe we could do that
tanko bushi
circle thing

at pep rallies or halftime at basketball games

you know, get people to come onto the court

put a donation into a collection box then join us in the dance

and maybe we could get someone to promise to match

the donations to encourage more people to join in

and I picture that old Kyushu coal-mining dance

with the moves of shoveling, tossing dirt

pushing the coal cart, wiping the sweat

as a feature of this school’s halftime shows

and I think of how people love it at Japanese festivals

how everyone joins in when they hear that song start up

and I laugh

it’s so ludicrous

it’s perfect

halftime
tanko bushi

I tell her
that

would be amazing

I can’t wait to tell Samnang

but I haven’t seen him around

so I text him to be sure

he’s going to the Newall Center

this week

and he replies
maybe not

I text
u ok?

but he doesn’t answer

even when I text him

again

and again

that afternoon it looks like it might snow

but Mom is determined to “exercise”

so I walk with her up the street

at a pace so slow

I’m chilled to the bone

in the damp cold

she’s dragging, has no energy

seems spaced-out and low

barely hearing my dance club news

and when we get back to the house

she’s stone-faced and tight-lipped

unenthused about halftime
tanko bushi

or a program for the one-year anniversary

and I know she’s just barely

holding herself together

hating that she can’t run

hating that she’s not working

hating that although she’s healing well

she doesn’t feel like her old self

I forget about
tanko bushi

help YiaYia make dinner

salad and tuna casserole

scarcely able to swallow my quip

about how I don’t get why on earth

people eat fish from cans