Where I walk my beautiful four year old
Japanese-Canadian boy
Holding hands to preschool every morning
A gravel welltrod path between
Narrow soccer van parking
And overgrown concrete gutters that rage in typhoons
On Monday, a soccer ball bought by a proud mother
Sat in the gutter, red, wanting to be played
Tuesday a leather tissue box
Given by a loving father
Blocked our path
On Wednesday, handouts blew about the lot
Prepared by a concerned teacher
And a lunchbox joined the tissue box
Thursday
Nothing changed
Friday saw notebooks in the gutter
A newish pair of leather shoes
Beading under the drizzling sky
My boy said "Why why why?"
He, too young to read
But I was bilingual in cruelty
Taught by Canadian toughs lurking in after school parks
Schooled by Japanese administrators waiting in interrogation rooms
I could read in the strewn pieces of a life
The name of this place
The Bullying Spot
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