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Turns

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Two routes out of Nikko take forty-eight
hairpin turns to reach
its lake-in-the-mountains destination.
The bus will be full.
You’ll need to stand in the aisle, shift your weight
constantly as you
try to see, through mountain-fogged glass, the last
vista Misao
Fujimuro saw not long before he
etched his death poem
into the bark of a tree, and then let
Kegon Falls swallow
this grandson of a samurai, this son
of a banker, this
lover, adolescent and rejected.

But there is no time for judgment, no time
for contemplation.
The bus is leaving, and you’ll want a seat
next to the window
for the scenic forty-eight hairpin turns
that take you away
from the Sea of Happiness, Chuzenji.

  • James King’s poetry has appeared in The Dillydoun Review, The Thieving Magpie, OpenDoor Poetry Magazine, Oddville Press, Big City Lit, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Crowstep Poetry Journal, BarBar Magazine, The Lake Poetry Journal, Journal of Expressive Writing, Months to Years, The Ekphrastic Review, and Dipity Literary Review. He is the author of the award-winning novel Bill Warrington’s Last Chance and Extenuating Circumstances (forthcoming). A graduate of the University of Notre Dame with an MA in Writing from Manhattanville University, he lives in Wilton, Connecticut.