Jealousy, My Attempt

by Miho Nonaka

Jealousy, My Attempt
after Marina Tsvetaeva

How is your life with the woman who
adores purple?
Who is beautiful enough to claim that color?

How is her English?
Good enough? Can she discuss
more than daily matters like

the body and what it asks for?
When you visited me in America,
I took you to a shop, bought her

purple gifts. Does she laugh at your
halting Japanese? Do you recite to her
(as you did to me) the preface to Kokinshu?

The poetry of Japan has its roots
in the human heart and flourishes
in the countless leaves of words.

You never asked what my favorite color was.
It’s changed since
we shopped that day.

Do you enjoy her? A piece
of meat, who smiles and sings childish tunes,
helping you wash your sunburnt back

gently outside the tub?
I can almost see her fingers.
Have you lost your zeal? Forgotten about

your father, a Scottish missionary
who took his family to Hokkaido
when you were little?

Is she one of your gods now?
Her curves, appetizing
hieroglyphs? Isn’t it poetry

which, without exertion, moves
heaven and earth, stirs the feelings
of gods and spirits invisible to the eye . . .

Remember Lydia of Thyatira,
a seller of purple in the New Testament?
Her dye came from thousands

of sea snails boiled in lead vats for days.
Their mucus would turn Tyrian purple
through heat and light. Imagine

the stench. My Love, think of
that smell, that is inside her,
inside me.