Millions of Years Ago | 1
My Nico | 2
Unfolding a Flood | 4
Turning the Key | 5
The Memory of Lake Tahoe | 16
My Mother’s Eyes | 17
My Mother | 18
Coda | 21
By Chance | 25
When Bamboo Shoots Poke Their Heads out of the Earth | 29
Blue Rambler | 30
Tender Buttons | 47
Waiting | 49
Refusing to be Plucked | 55
We Want Roses | 56
She Sleeps with Him Every Night | 59
She-Wolf Made of Rock | 61
Blue Ticket | 65
Learning to Swim | 66
Floating Studio, Floating Zendo | 67
Fannette Island | 76
Floating Zendos and Mentorgartens | 79
I Learned about Snowflakes | 82
I Learned about the Birds of Lake Tahoe | 84
Summer Snow Cake | 86
Love or Affection | 88
Mary’s Dream | 89
Each Other’s Pockets | 90
Black Cloth | 91
Brown Kimono | 94
Something Broke | 96
The Voice of the Lake | 101
Moon Writing | 102
Artichoke | 104
No Name for Him | 107
What’s in a Name? | 108
Like Piles of Laundry? | 109
Frozen Pond | 111
Coda’s Dream | 113
Like Mother and Son | 114
Fifteen Good Prints | 115
Glass Moon | 117
Tsukimi Udon (Moon Noodles) | 118
Soaring | 121
Walking Underwater | 123
Open My Heart | 125
Like Rice on Chopsticks | 126
Like a Sequence of Poems | 127
Waiting, Still | 128
Morpheus | 129
Blue Marble | 131
Something Like Love | 132
Afterword (Afterward): Like the Navel of My Dream of Nico | 133
Acknowledgments | 139
Illustrations | 141
Notes | 143