SHARD

for Kenji

White porcelain piece thumb-sized
fractal of a bowl thrown by the potter
on say an island off the coast of Kyushu
a cross-hatching all that remains
of the blue house where she once waited
for his return the glaze now a thin study
of what endures perhaps wagon wheels
horseback who knows and the long voyage
into the rising sun to the islands located
at 19 degrees latitude themselves shards
broken like her heart like this bowl
that served so well a man who stayed
worked hard and never returned
I know this because today I found it
in the gravel above Kenji's place
not a stone but a made thing a small
keepsake outside the house of one
who combed the shorelines of Kohala
a land once covered in sugar plantations
canes cut down for the world's cravings
by men who never went home again