{"id":7520,"date":"2013-12-01T01:10:44","date_gmt":"2013-12-01T06:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=7520"},"modified":"2015-02-15T19:06:30","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T01:06:30","slug":"we-kept-our-shadow-christina-mcdaniel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/7520","title":{"rendered":"We Kept Our Shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 1965<\/em><\/p>\n

Two hibakusha\u2014
\n            my husband and I <\/p>\n

prepare for
\n            night. He slams the shutters <\/p>\n

upon the ghostly
\n            cherry blossoms along <\/p>\n

the stone walls
\n            where I see the shadows <\/p>\n

of three classmates
\n            in uniform, matching haircuts, <\/p>\n

and the smallest
\n            one points to the parachute <\/p>\n

that shattered
\n            gravity. My husband<\/p>\n

has learned
\n            to keep out the wind <\/p>\n

the ash-purple
\n            Nagasaki dusk. He cannot <\/p>\n

close out memory.
\n            I press myself into <\/p>\n

my straw mat,
\n            gazing up at the prayer <\/p>\n

scroll, the pieta
\n            bottled in gold, <\/p>\n

that hangs
\n            above our whys. <\/p>\n

I tighten my
\n            Kimono around myself <\/p>\n

as my husband
\n            dips his hand <\/p>\n

in iodine,
\n            a snake-wine maker <\/p>\n

in his wooden
\n            shed where we met <\/p>\n

one year after
\n            as he curled an adder, <\/p>\n

slit throat,
\n            skin half off,<\/p>\n

into the bottle of
\n            fermented liquor. <\/p>\n

The snake went on
\n            writhing, snapped his body <\/p>\n

against the glass.
\n            I hid in the penumbra <\/p>\n

of the rafters,
\n            sixteen-year old leper <\/p>\n

in a yellow Kimono
\n            too bright for Hell, <\/p>\n

my head downturned,
\n            a few strands of hair<\/p>\n

like brushstrokes
\n            on a prayer scroll. <\/p>\n

The elfin man turned
\n            his tear-filled eyes to me, <\/p>\n

You there too?
\n            he said. I asked him <\/p>\n

if snake wine
\n            erased memory.<\/p>\n

Twenty Augusts past,
\n            I let my kimono slide <\/p>\n

off like skin and turn
\n            my back to him, <\/p>\n

the mountainous
\n            burns across my spine <\/p>\n

with shadows of
\n            their own. When he applies <\/p>\n

the iodine, it feels like
\n            the tears of the one-eyed <\/p>\n

mother nursing
\n            her limp toddler, <\/p>\n

her lips
\n            frozen around <\/p>\n

her first word.
\n            Skimming his hand <\/p>\n

across our history,
\n            my husband talks <\/p>\n

of the time
\n            our son discovered<\/p>\n

his shadow. He lifted
\n            his arms in prayer to see<\/p>\n

if it would follow,
\n            turned around fifty<\/p>\n

times and asked us if
\n            he could capture it in a bottle.<\/p>\n

Christina McDaniel<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 1965 Two hibakusha\u2014             my husband and I prepare for             night. He slams the shutters upon the ghostly             cherry blossoms along the stone walls             where I see the shadows of three classmates             in uniform, matching haircuts, and the smallest             one points to the parachute that shattered             gravity. My husband has learned             to keep out the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-1Xi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7520"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10229,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520\/revisions\/10229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}