that night —
above the table in the cafe
a face like a vase full of flowers
even if a crow caws on some tree
I won't care

night is cruel —
filling both my hands
my face
tired in shiny powder
pulling the hands of the clock to twelve

Hayashi Fumiko ,1903–51, Japanese novelist and short-story writer. The daughter of an itinerant peddlar, Hayashi was raised in abject poverty. After finishing school, she moved to Tokyo to write, barely managing to support herself with a variety of menial jobs. Her first novel, Horoki [journal of wandering] (1928) records her early years of struggle. Subsequent works continued to address with compassion the despair of the poor and downtrodden and the suffering caused by war. Although Hayashi was briefly influenced by proletarian literature, her exploration of themes of social justice is grounded in optimism and a belief in the human will to survive.

Links:

I Saw a Pale Horse and Selected Poems from Diary of a Vagabond by Hayashi Fumiko

Be a Woman: Hayashi Fumiko and Modern Japanese Women's Literature by Joan E. Ericson and Fumiko Horoki Hayashi and Fumiko Suisen Hayashi

Wandering Heart: The Work and Method of Hayashi Fumiko
by Susanna Fessler