IOU (Poetry Preview)

where the lake cracks in two

Okinawa Prefecture
2017, October 5th

I remember the crunch of loose gravel, how my shoes would drag against the unpaved road, skin blushing against the soft warmth of a subtropical fall.

In this secluded edge of town, there used to be a paddy field right next to the sidewalk, but after years of undrained rain from pacific storms, a lake has taken its place. Grass, despite the pool that had began to reside, still grew – each blade breaking the surface, swaying in the wind. Some days, the water sparkles like my mom's godawful sequined dress, thrifted from Shimokitazawa – that knew a version of her that I've never known –  the light creating a pattern that reflected the golden hue of every afternoon. The lake, like the dress it reminds me of, is now simply a bowl meant to hide this town's lost secrets.

A version of it, that only a few knew about.

I once read about deserts becoming fresh water sanctuaries in certain parts of the world, after growing curious about why a patch had sunk back into the earth to give this town something no one had anticipated. Something like that — of wastelands becoming lakes, of dust flats coming to life once in a decade, of monsoons filling up what's supposed to be dead and dry — had somehow rattled a piece of me the day I heard Tachibana Ojī gently talking to his late wife near the farmer's market about how the plot of submerged land may be a hopeless case after all. How it never ended up drying like it was supposed to, and how she had only smiled sadly.

In this almost barren town, the lake doesn't move anyone. It doesn't have anything to offer. It's no oasis, no miracle, just a paddy field locals no longer find useful. Too small to throw fish in, too deep to plant any local crops.

It's lonely. On certain days, it almost looks like a broken promise that someone ended up losing.

(A hole in a pocket kind-of-lose.)

Something's out of place.

There's a glimmer, a break in the center, a face — looking back at me from where I'm standing. The afternoon grows warmer. The stranger tilts their head back.

"Are you going to take a photo of me?"

He asks, voice light enough to be carried away by the wind that patterns the surface from where he's submerged. His eyes dart to my phone held in front of my face, thirteen seconds into a recording.

"No." I answer, crisp enough to cut the wind carrying the remains of his voice away. Another gust rattles the grass, my resolve sways. The elastic in my hair snaps. "I'm filming the view."

The wind picks up after I say that, and he looks at me with a stone for a face, grown out strands of his bleached hair being billowed by the breeze. I stop filming, but I don't put my phone away.

"Do you want me to take one?" I ask, flat tone serious, eyes watching him through the screen. A glint dances across his irises, perhaps a trick of the light through the lens.

"No." He hides his smile by disappearing under the water, now a pink soup, sparkling brighter than what I imagine of milky way's after trails. The world basks in a rosy filter, a twilight I almost want to drown in. I stand there dumbly, wondering why someone would swim in a lake filled with stale rainwater. If he's, maybe, someone like me; lost in a town that we used to call home.

He gasps for air, breaking the surface. A lone breeze moves the strands of my hair back. The trees rustle, the water moves, the pieces remain in place. I feel a subtle curious gaze as he shakes away the droplets out of his hair that refract the light. It moves me a few steps back — the view of the sun in that moment, how it blankets itself within the strands of his wet hair. His body almost one with the lake that reflected the world like a mirror. "But you can film me."