In Front of the Fountain | Poem

In front of the Hanayashiki fountain
that man became my father

On a spring day when white clouds shone
I received a gift in front of the fountain

With the gift I had received in my hand
I, still small, was thinking

My mother is going to marry this man
What will happen to me, I wondered

Will I live with my cousin who lives nearby?
Will I live with my grandmother in Kochi?
Will I go to my uncle's house in Osaka?

Going with my mother
That was an option I did not have

It is my mother who is getting married
Not me

From that day on, I kept thinking
What will happen to me, I wondered

There is little a four-year-old can do
Only try to be considerate of those around me
So that things go well for my mother and that man

When I go to the public bath with that man
I pretend not to know anyone I see
So that they don't pry into this and that

I don't talk about unnecessary things at nursery school either
Not to the friends I've been with since I was a baby
Nor to my favorite teacher

To my real father who occasionally comes to the apartment
Of course, I say nothing
Thinking that I probably won't see him anymore

Even so
My four-year-old mind was spinning
What will happen to me, I wondered

I love Masako-chan next door
And my aunt and uncle are always kind to me

My mother's friend, that lady
Sometimes takes me to the movies, and I like her

I have a promise to marry
Hitomi-chan from nursery school

I have friends and a cousin three and a half years older than me
I also like this town near the Edogawa River

When will my mother move?
Days passed without an answer
One day in summer, I finally asked my mother

My mother was deeply shocked
She was shocked and started to cry

That a four-year-old had been worrying for months
About his own future

From that day on
My mother stopped treating me like a child

The things my mother was worried about,
she told me all about them.

That it is difficult to live as just a mother and child,
that she had to build a life before I grew up,
and that my birth was complicated.

My mother's marriage
was a marriage for my sake.

The nursery school sports day is coming soon.
That will be our last memory of this town.

By the end of summer, I turned five,
and my mother and I left the town where I was born and raised.

2024/6/23