It's Still Life

Almost Always

It’s autumn. Farmers move bales of hay on the county lanes, and almost always a bale falls free, unravels, dusty debris in the air, catching on brambles, thistles, and twiggy rib-caged hedgerows… and as it happens, you’ll regret not taking the motorway with its thick-as-bees morning traffic, because now you’re stuck behind a tractor hauling hay, and you quickly close the car’s windows just as the driver in front of you decides to overtake, but he can’t with that bend in the road, so he crosses the centre line to look, slams the brakes, tyres shrieking like cicadas as the farmer brakes, down-shifts, grinds the gears of the tractor, and turns into a drought-dusty lane with a sign reading Hog Trough Farm, and that’s how it will happen on a bright sunny morning when you’re stuck behind a tractor hauling hay.

Catch dust in your throat
Fields baked. Sudden weather.
Your skin tastes of salt

Poem form: Haibun. Rejected yesterday by 3Elements, so I’ll share it rather than let it sit in a Reject folder. Word count: 157. ©Misky 2022 Shared with #amwriting on Twitter