Countless

by

Today, I lost count.

ONE Okinawan—
my grandmother with TWO names:
Yuriko… Mary.

That first name, our shame
over THREE generations
under that shadow.

FOUR decades later
I took my grandmother’s shame
and burnt it to ash.

The name she gave me
has always belonged to her.
My present, her past…

our past, the future.
The new one I hoped to build
was FIVE times brighter

but now my eyes blur.
With SIX Asian women shot
I can’t count my tears.