15 Haiku

Gang of five raccoons
looting neighborhood garbage
in the lamp-lit street

“The fans in the stands
of the team that just lost look
like peed-upon plants”

The cat steps outside
and scrutinizes the world
through its little nose

*

The complications
of these electrical wires
under empty skies

What haunts a house worse
than the heavy tick-tock of
a grandfather clock?

I bother a bug
so I can watch it scurry—
why not let it be?

*

Early evening train—
man staring blankly into
newspaper comics

Plotting and planning
amidst the calm ripe stillness
of a green garden

Dim subway platform—
sudden glint of a wristwatch
on a man who waits

*

Off work, on a train—
an entire car to myself
one sunny Friday

Crisp autumn evening—
warm sweet smell of soap floating
from a laundromat

Swimming like a smile
in autumn skies before dawn—
silver slash of moon

*

For Hazel Dickens:

After the party—
apartment full of phantoms
and leftover wine

Early autumn— I’m not
ready for dark heavy pants
yet, I tell myself

Get up. Work all day.
Go home. Eat and dance and play
guitar and sing! Then sleep.



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