[Michael Cantor]

Okay Ralph, you'll regret dragging this up again. It only encourages me. Another from my first book. Hang in there, wade through the boring sex stuff, and I eventually get around to food.

Pretty Gaijin Boys Have Often Been Her Weakness

This one smells so sweet
And sour – like takuan pickles -
Her pretty silly
Gaijin daikon pickle boy
She stretches as he strokes her

...Oh God, he thinks, this is incredible:
...he has to find the time to write them all
...I’m at the legendary Old Imperial
...and met this geisha girl, and now she’s curled
...up in my bed right here in Tokyo!

Pretty gaijin boys
Have often been her weakness
That and the brandy
And danna-san off golfing
In Hakone with his wife

...Yanagibashi geishas, he’d been told;
...very famous and traditional.
...But most were old. And then the casual
...hand upon his thigh, a squeeze, a bold
...but private look, a number on a card.

Such luck to find him
A boring Daiwa party
After shall we meet?
She glided through the lobby
Panties folded in her sleeve

...They spent the morning making love again,
...and still he could not quite believe that she
...was real – she had been dressed so carefully,
...kimono purple, golden sash, and then,
...beneath that silk, no underwear, just skin.

No more time to play
The Fuji Bank reception
Starts at six she must
Instruct the maids and dancers
First some lunch with daikon-boy

...He’s never used the hotel sushi bar;
...the sweep of pine, the rows of lacquer trays,
...so Japanese. I don’t eat fish, he says
...but shrimp’s okay, and nuzzles at her ear,
...then runs his fingers through the just-brushed hair.

Sushi Master Jun
Knows her from Yoshiwara
Suggests rich tuna
Streaked with fat. And for your friend?
She requests the dancing shrimp.

...Raw shrimp, alive and writhing, are now spread
...behind the counter, heads and shells stripped clean,
...the bodies dipped in soy and served to him.
...He watches each one quiver, armor shed,
...too dumb to know it is already dead.