Kamikaze

• (1) "Her father embarked at sunrise/ with a flask of water, a samurai sword"
• (2) "like a huge flag waved first one way/ then the other in a figure of eight"
• (3) "the loose silver of whitebait and once/ a tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous."
• (4) "only we children still chattered and laughed/ till gradually we too learned/ to be silent"
• (5) "And sometimes, she said, he must have wondered/ which had been the better way to die."