Haiku
Broken vase.
No way to repair
the past.
The cold sun rises.
On tossed sheets, a pale hand
unfurls in a final dream.
Lights coming.
The poised foot
retreats to the icy curb.
Empty bed.
The wren's next
cracks in the frost.
Thin rain dulls the dawn.
The fisherman tilts the oyster,
slips grey tides into his mouth.
Morning cup.
Between my hands,
the steam of a distant land.
Outside, wind races,
tossing leaves and laughter.
Here, tea cools in a single bowl.
Shattered sleep.
Wake, cursing
the beauty of the dawn.
Sunday. Church. Singing
love songs to a god
he steadfastly disobeys.
In the darkness,
she shatters ice
to wash her morning face.
About Seánan Forbes
Seánan Forbes:
A native New Yorker, I moved to London in
1996, rendering myself terminally dislocated. I am always homesick for
wherever I'm not: Marrakech, the Tsodilo Hills, Kansas City, Graz, the deck
of the real Black Pearl -- any place where I have lived well or where people
I love abide. It pains me to think of all the places I will never be, and
that pain makes me love wherever I am all the more deeply. My work has run
in a variety of publications, including The Mid-America Poetry Review,
Kalliope, and String to Bow, a chapbook published by Leaf Press.
This is Seánan Forbes first
appearance in Sketchbook.
