Pirene's Fountain has published my poem, "The Lightness of Heavy Words," a Haibun form honoring Jack Dairiki.
As Though
As Though
An orange cat I first mistook as a basketball slept on
as a black bird missing a tailfeather lay as though and
a man who claimed to own the cat refused to call and
raked leaves with a two-pronged wooden tool while
the bird moved its head as though and
I found a gray cat on a bed, its fur matted, its bones
evident, and it kneaded its paws on my forearm
already scarred, scratched, sore as though and
a woman sat on a chair speaking words while a
boy sat on the bed’s edge as though and
I saw poets reading in the dark from pages torn from
notebooks not theirs and from leaves and twigs and
one stood, then another, cried as though and
a door opened to a hallway covered with images not
from the poems as though and
I paced in the hall while the poets read and their voices
dimmed as the day became musty as though and
a woman spoke words and stood in a doorway and I
ran down the stairs and the phone rang and you said
you were in Kentucky.
-- Trina L. Drotar
first published in WTF - 2011
