by Julia Griffin

For Mary

“Everyone in Japan will be called Sato by 2531 unless marriage law changed, says professor”
—The Guardian

Japan in the year 2531:
We’d require a squadron of seers
To fill us in on what will have been done
In five hundred and seven-odd years;

Hokkaido’s snows may have long since fried,
What with whole new kinds of polluter,
And all the rich may be living inside
An animate supercomputer;

And the only faith may be servitude,
And the sky may be hued like a peony,
And all may die that need air and food,
Since it’s likely there will not be any …

Or maybe, instead, we’ll have managed to solve
The problems that now so bemire us,
And we’ll find the perfect way to evolve,
Which won’t be found by a virus,

And the world (including Japan) won’t be
So heated and angry and trashy,
Even if this does cost, as a fee,
Every Ito and every Hayashi,

And our successors, grown kind and wise,
Will simply say Arigato!
For that brave new world, where nobody dies,
And everyone’s name is Sato.