Tag: #amwriting
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11 March: FOWC The Toothbrush
Yes, Perhaps So I’m visiting my mother. I wake in a strange bed,and make my way down the hallto wash my face. There next to the sinkis my toothbrush topped witha pea-size drop of toothpaste. Mum’s reliving my childhood. When I was a kid, she did this, too.I assumed she was being frugal.Maybe it was…
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15.02.22 That Old Chestnut
That Old Chestnut It’s still gnarly-bare,no leaves yeton that old chestnut tree. It’s old.It’s arbitrary.Bang-bang out of order, like a belligerent judge,a rigid thought growing wherenothing near it is its equal. There’s nothing symmetrical about it.Hit by lightning years ago.Blew sprinters and branches aboutas if hit by God’s own fist. But that tree’s dying.Slowly.Bleedingfrom its…
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17.02.22 Dunes
The Dunes Back then summer waswhite dunes with cowlicksprigs of crabgrass and mounded hills of sandscrubbed the wind. Sand ramped across scrubas if pulled alongon tiny toy wheels. And with wind at your back,you’d put down a blanket,open your favourite book, and expose your skinto as much sunas it could take in. Back then,that was…
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7.02.22: Gargoyle
Supermarket Gargoyles Right next to the anti-viralhand gel by the automaticopening doors, standsan elderly security guard. He’s a poker faced manin a buttoned-up uniform,and a shirt bleached whiteand starch-stiffened. Dressed like that, I expecthim to do something whenmy shopping trolly sets offthe security alarm, but no, he just stands there, grim as cold porridge, stony…
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4.02.22: The Russian Girl
The Russian Girl at the Duck Pond There’s too much looking on bright side, she says. She has rod-straight black hair and a Russian accent that makes me nostalgic for Rocky the Flying Squirrel, and Boris and Natasha – not everything was bleak and fatalistic during the Cold War. And she says, lots of people,…
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1.02.22: dVerse Haibun
Winter Digs In The way dark digs itself out of soil, or the way February always shivers as ice settles on the straight lines and arches of its letters, and the way the sunrise swells, red and sore as neglect, and yet we always expect morning to reign over us with hope and generosity .…
It's Still Life 