Ｍemories of West Sugamo
Sugawara Katsumi
（translated by Arthur Binard）
Long ago
We lived in West Sugamo
Downstairs your great-eyed mother
and elder sister
Upstairs you and I
And all the laundry hung up to dry.
When streamers went up around Tenso
Shrine
The vendors sold pinwheels and rice
marzipan ...
Now and then a shower would pass
over on a sunny day.
Long ago
We lived in West Sugamo
Where a field lay beside a great
prison.
Of course,he didn't come straight
from there
But once a month a plainclothesman
would come.
I was marked A MAN TO BE AVOIDED
And so had no job,no friends,
nothing
But a clock that played a song of
seafarers
A low desk for adining table
Two bright patterned cushions
Nothing else but you
Who went off to work early each
morning