"Do you catch many fish here?" I said

          smiling, with your leather browned skin

          expecting the broken English of a Thai

          or Cambodian grandfather.

 

          "You better believe it!  Perch and salmon.

          I use little live shrimp - see!"

          Your "see" punctuating every phrase,

          as if nursed on films of George Raft or 'Bogey'.

 

          We speak of your grandchildren, then

          fishing,  then unexpectedly of your military 

          service during World War II

          as an interrogator for the American OSS in 

          Formosa, Korea and later occupied Japan (your  

          parent’s homeland).

 

          I sound for the wisdom of old Japan, thinking

          hard times impose few choices on even the wisest

          of us! I find only the dogma of forties US  

          newsreels.

 

          We then talk of Japanese internment,

          prejudiced governments and peoples and the 

          Jewish officer who year after year refused to  

          recommend your promotion to lieutenant.  The line 

          then stirring with a strike and I distancing myself, 

          you hurriedly hone all truths to one -"It's the  

          damned Jews in the East that are causing

          all these problems - see!"

 

          Walking away, I glanced far back and saw deep into

          the terror-frenzied eye of that fresh young salmon

          struggling at the end

          of your hook.

 

Seattle, Alki Beach '88