We sit in front of chefs gutting amberjack, black intestines
unspooling memory to the tune of Yoasobi and Korean,
knives turning red as they gouge white-pink flesh open.
Salmon, sea bream, squid pass us by in shells of plastic,
are squeezed between oily chopsticks. Waitresses laugh
when blowtorches, like stars, light up the winter wind.
Newtown sleeps in the distance, dreams in the dark blue
of the sea. Trattorias and izakayas etch neon words on the sky,
angler fish drawing the drunk and nameless in.
Alan from Perth, not yet twenty, dreams of escape.
He’s learning Japanese, leaving after his studies
to stay forever in the land of anime, onsens and ramen.
He’s thinking of the abuse he suffers under his parents,
the walks around Haymarket, the echoes of empty streets,
the nightjars and wattlebird singing their goodbyes.
Under fluorescent lights, camellias and crocuses bloom
in his mind. In his eyes, his pilgrimages to the Blue Mountains:
he brings only a sleeping bag, seeking out answers.
Now, the steady koan of bronzewings guide our fingers
to furikake-topped gyudons. To eat is to forget, to share
the world on our tongues. Huddled in this dingy corner,
we swallow our words, content to read each other’s faces.
In his parka, I smell orange-scented coffee, the wind
of the cities he’s searched in for a home.
At midnight we slurp on tonkotsu and drink sencha,
purple rays dancing and spilling into our cups,
dark clouds floating by like horses kissing.
Alan, who ate snow off mountaintops,
hurled himself off sandstone mesas,
drank the yellow glow of arroyos,
listens to the lullaby of the Clock Tower,
watches the orange lights of Central Station go,
the cooing cockatoos, the morning rose.
