Poem: Homecoming by Satsuki Ina (1998)

Window casings
hold the stubs
of prison bars
like teeth shorn
from the gums.

Scorching sun
reflects the light
on the ebony wings
of fallen swallows.

A prison within
a prison:
Japanese? No!
American? No!
double Jeopardy.

Tiny white shells
litter the ground.
fossilized tears of
mothers and fathers of
the children of the camps.

Tule Lake, August 1998