Poetry By Shareen K. Murayama

Mark Collins CC



Happiness Could Land on Anyone


My nephew’s eighth birthday is tomorrow and I need 
to pick up a gift. They say education begins in the home. 

I mean, is it only me? Wanting to give joy. I’m not sure
what that’s supposed to sound like—I love the sound

of the word “mitigation.” My teeth, tongue and jaw working
toward a common goal. A father circles his son, says, 

“Love you, boy.” And I want a different father. A bicycle. 
A fishing rod. A tennis racquet in need of strings. 

That could be a happy story, couldn’t it? 
When I think of touch starvation, I, too, want to be a car

dog’d by a chain, engine off, no braking. When I think of joy, 
I still want a different father. In black and white movies, 

a house will fall on the antagonist causing me to look up
to myself, say, “Love you, girl. You got this.” 

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​Shareen K. Murayama is the author of three poetry books Housebreak (Bad Betty Press, 2022) and Girl, Are You in the Experimental Group (Harbor Editions, 2022), and The Mother Who Couldn’t Describe a Thing if She Could (Harbor Editions, 2024). She’s a Japanese American, Okinawan American poet, a Jack Hazard Fellow and educator, who lives in Hawai’i with her people and her dog named Squid.