Welcome to Your Wish List Tomohiko Nakao

For this next thought, I wear the white crash helmet and jumpsuit
of heady speculation: A name I saw on the computer screen.

I grip the helm of my imaginary speedboat cutting the clean Pacific
thinking of you behind me in Japan, Tomohiko Nakao,
ass being packed into a Kyoto subway car, late as hell,
my crucial and unmet friend
choking down pristine rice

where you could not possibly be, since
you were just here in my damned library seat
trying to buy a book on-line.

I saw your wish-list exposed when I put down my keys.
I know what you have been through by virtue of your interest in foot yoga —
the book you picked about how to demolish the garage yourself.

Your wish for a transistor radio to listen to late at night
is my command,

as is your wish for a calendar to keep track of your days
as is your wish to go back
to something you
dreamed with no thought of me.

But, Tomohiko,
you were so recently here where the fabulous Olympics of wishing
can lead to the land of the distraught.

Whatever you added to your wish-list
cannot possibly eclipse
what you really need —

what you actually longed for
on your grey ride home from this cement building.