OK, I'm giving you a little tour of my last few years.
So I'm going back to the moment when I returned to the US,
in 2017.
And this poem is called "What a Crazy Country."
"Girls A through J--" this book is called Some Girls Walk
Into the Country They Are From.
I am Japanese and American, and I was returning to the US
after having spent some time in Asia.
"What a Crazy Country."
"Girls A through J in a new land.
As good and conscientious visitors,
they dutifully abide by the laws of the new land.
It would only be polite.
And that is why, when girl A vomits,
girl B extends her cupped hands to catch it.
In this land, it is not permissible for vomit
to touch the ground.
Girl B then passes the vomit into girl C's cupped hands,
who passes it to girl D's cupped hands, and so on.
The hands of the girls who have already passed it forward
are covered in a layer of vomit.
They wait patiently for it to dry.
They are not permitted to wash their hands."
This is gross, I'm sorry.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm not sorry.
[LAUGHTER]
Because it is gross.
"Round and around the vomit goes, until there is not
enough left to pass on.
When the passing of the vomit is complete,
the girls move to a sunnier location
so as to speed up the drying of the vomit layers
on their hands, and then, finally,
move on with their lives.
Girl E is still processing what has happened to them
in this new land when a local informant whispers something
in her ear.
What she hears makes girl E almost vomit.
She tastes it at the back of her throat,
but she just barely manages to swallow it back down."