TWO PINTS
fireside rug
wishing the dog
would take me
Six years it was, sleeping on couches. Waiting for Mam to get better. Every aunt took a turn. And every uncle.
earliest sketchbook
red running
off his face
Sounds grand. Not like at ours. No one’s touching his balls, Gramps would scream, after one too many. Granny chopping the veggies with a vengeance. We kids turned up the TV but couldn’t stop staring. At their collie, humping the loveseat.
school project
the futile search
for scissors
Huh! Never had a dog. Had a rat once. Thought it was a boy. One of my cousins dissected it. Said it was a girl. That she could tell ’cos it didn’t cry.
upping the ante
after doctors and nurses …
first switchblade
That’s nothing. Found a photo of Da in a shoebox. Him in his uniform holding it glued to his shoulder. That little smile. A badge for marksmanship, he said. As he pointed his rifle at the boyfriend.
goth makeup
blending in
the bruises
Bruises? You were lucky. My whole body was a bruise. And knees were always red-raw. Had to lick the driveway clean. Whenever they let me out. The only unscarred skin I saw was through a keyhole.
eyeball to eyeball
the one-upmanship
of burst blood vessels
—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
Tribute to Collaboration
__________
Roberta Beary & Lew Watts: “Lew and I have worked together in the past (we are co-authors, with Rich Youmans, of Haibun: A Writer’s Guide), but we have never written a haibun together. Traditionally, linked haibun involve alternating couplets of prose and haiku, where each prose sections links to but shifts away from the preceding haiku. Since we have both written extensively about our difficult childhoods, we had the idea of each of us writing alternating couplets that would escalate in gruesome absurdity; a kind of parody of ourselves. Those aficionados of Monty Python may recognize elements of their famous sketch, ‘The Four Yorkshiremen.’” (web)
