Mayumi Yamamoto is a writer and academic based in Kyoto. She studied in India and worked in Nepal as well as in Japan before her retirement. Her poems and other writings have appeared in Tint Journal, Rigorous, Spillwords, Ariel Chart, The Space Ink, The Wise Owl, Literary Yard, and others. She authored several published books in the Japanese language.

Mayumi Yamamoto

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Life

You will be born tomorrow, then I will leave you soon after.
I place you in the hands of those who will raise you carefully.

On your nth birthday, I will meet you again to affirm
my memory of the shape of your nail and to find out
what became of your hair pattern.

Now, two decades have passed.

Your body has lost the newborn's scent
that filled me with surprise and joy.
Instead, I find you becoming another me; A newly born me.

By your birth, I've foreseen my death
and already celebrated it in advance.

Because your life is my life.
Because my past will be that place where your future lies.

In this way, I have my place in the world,
as is the way of all living beings.
And our stories continue as if they are a single life.