HAIKU SEQUENCE: NIGHT WATCH
Meant for the gnawing,
the meat and the marrow bone.
Live for the feasting.
~
Little frog, singing
in the rain, joy attends you
under the stone step.
~
Elgar’s Nimrod soars.
I’m a clarinetist, twelve,
first chair, lone weeper.
~
Sprinkler heads skitter
above the newly-laid sod.
We watch from windows.
~
Empty milk bottles
line the hallway shelf, their glass
gently green, clinking.
~
Tiny, pink, threaded
cap, heart-shaped perfume bottle—
slight squeak, twisting off.
~
Creeping past my door,
a young cat yowls at the moon.
Neighbors’ lights come on.
~
A garrett, pine trees–
slant light through dormer windows–
a pine bed, plain desk.
I bend to the task,
listen for the heart’s desire,
type night-long lyrics.
The birds of morning call.
Crumpled sheets fill the basket—
nine lines remain.
~
A driver slices the air.
The golf ball’s thwock:
its rattle in the cup.
~
Cars, in streetlight, nudge
dark curbs: wet asphalt, strewn leaves.
Couples hurry by.
Lamps in high windows
cast shadows through mottled trees.
I walk the dark stretch
of arching branches,
alone in my need to name
the night air, alone.
~
A baby cries in
someone’s neighboring house.
We sleepy mothers wake.
~
In the door, his keys
clank and jangle. The morning
tryst trails from his shirt.
~
In my lover’s eyes,
the world’s barbarism lurks:
slits for irises.
Time to make a move.
This snake slithers in tall grass,
shedding skin, revealed.
~
Beaks fly out my mouth.
Turquoise and teal, the feathers
furl. In flight, they caw.
~
He stood before me,
humbled, penitent. I raised
his chin to kiss him.
~
Like a girl who lifts
her skirts and crosses the creek,
we try again, love.
~
His words hung like fruit
dangling from persimmon trees,
bruised and out of reach.
~
The heart knocks about
in its empty casing, wants
only to beat on.
~
O, full moon, I stare
into your pale sphere: haunting,
luminous, distant.
Glint Literary Journal 