Papa used to use joint sealer
Anna Lete, Philippines (prose)
Kati Mohr, Germany (haiku/monoku)
Drifting Sands, Issue 24
he asks and asks
to be taken home
tiles of mosaic
It’s been hard.
Jani, the day after Papa’s burial, I woke up alone. Ian was already working. Leon was already taking his first nap of the day. And I found myself telling my brain to stop the tears, it was time to wake up and live. How. I dragged myself out of bed to brush my teeth, wash my face, and put on some decent looking clothes. I don’t know what came over me. I saw my hands reach for eyeliner and lipstick. I don’t know what snapped in my brain so that I ran to Ian.
“We’re getting a washing machine!” I guess he read my mind. That getting a washing machine was my own way of grieving, my own way of mourning. He quickly got ready and we went to buy it.
hung in a line migration calls
The washing machine arrived a week later. It’s super cool. Because all you do is dump the clothes in, and turn on the machine. It takes about an hour for the clothes to get washed. When it’s done, I hang the clothes up for a few more hours and they’re ready to be folded, sorted, and placed back in the closet.
piling up the monsoon in past tense
I’ve done a lot of questionable things since getting the washing machine. I’ve insisted on keeping Papa’s favorite shirts that I now wear around the house, his old polos that I can use over my own shirts like a little cape. I’ve hung up his collection of paintings I don’t really like but have come to appreciate. I’ve forced myself to the drugstore just to buy Leon’s medicine . . . I’ve dragged my little family to church because it feels like Papa.
chickadee that ribcage crushed that pray that
I don’t know if I’ll ever be over his death, Jani. But you said we don’t get over it. You said we just learn how to live with it. You said we learn how to be comfortable with our loss, with our sadness, with this void that cannot be filled by a washing machine.
looking up
for the glow
papa’s new moon
Taking Care
contemporary haibun online, issue 19.3
bellies
How they enjoy (the glee in the eyes of their children) watching ducks and ducklings dive for the crumbs.
drifting by
The lake is a morgue. Newspaper articles speak of “misunderstood animal love” that has led to the death of all the birds that live near the lake. Fed breadcrumbs, day in and day out. Thrown into the water. One day, foul gases rose from the bottom of the lake.
our daily bread
The Empress
MacQueen’s Quinterly, issue 21, published: 1 January 2024
all day spring rain
earthworms winding their way
the course of a vein
This time we take a little more time when the contractions start. No rupture of the membranes. We arrive at the hospital and the nurse explains (as she did last time) this may take a while, and why don’t we go home again. Instead, I grab my husband firmly by the arm and we walk in circles in the entrance hall. On the second round I have to pause, breathe, “Let’s go back.”
Waiting room. This may take a while. The nurse, on one of her brief visits, hands my husband a cloth bandage to pull over my belly for the contraction recorder and rushes out again, but I snatch it from his hand. It lands on the floor with a loud thud. “I do NOT need that!” She comes back and briefly looks me in the face. Then she leads me straight into the delivery room. Just like last time, it is quick, painfully quick. As soon as he is born, the midwife’s right arm makes two rapid movements. He’s crying, he’s healthy, I am in tears the whole time. Later my husband tells me the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around his neck.
still half asleep
the first sound
a redstart
Unravel
MacQueen’s Quinterly, issue 21, published: 1 January 2024
Lake Constance floats by in the rectangular window. Just a sliver of violet blue. It changes colour, first to grey, now to the white of haze above the water surface. Then the train has passed. There is knitting on the fold-away table, a book, a smartphone. If the music wasn’t so loud in my ears, I could hear the hiss of the train through the morning, this light whirring and whistling.
Destination: St. Gallen, Switzerland.
racing clouds
farther down the stream
half a paper boat
Not many get off at the station, but those who do look around at the spotless half-timber houses with eyes wide open. As if they have been painted into an environment of the picturesque and luxurious. A little pale, immersed in a dream, they disappear down the stairs and into the winding alleys of the city centre. My friend meets me at the main entrance. We hug and hurry through the rain-wet streets to reach the house where she lives.
soft and steady rain
one strut of the umbrella slips
out of place
Her maisonette is eccentric, a work of art. The architect and artist who lived here playfully interlocked the open levels with different entrances. I get the tour, soon our conversation turns to the one open landing with an exquisite armchair and a side table under a large roof window that can only be reached via a railless walkway across the living room: the most rarely used spot in this flat, but pretty. My gaze is drawn to it again and again.
super pink cloud
someone dims the backlight
The morning here is somewhat sharper, purer. Behind the sliding glass door in the second bathroom, I let the shower water run all over me and keep touching the wall. This is for real.
reflecting dew
on the other side
the other side
“Coffee?” Her voice reaches me from downstairs. I can choose from six types of capsules. The labelling is printed too small, and the containers for used and not-yet-used capsules are filled to the brim, larger than the coffee machine itself. The harmonies in the background shift.
fresh rolls
the different jams
and honey
At some point I share with her what makes me deeply happy. Art. Creating. States that absorb all words—they cannot be measured or easily explained. My friend laughs. The laughter leaves her lips and reaches my ear, this almost simultaneity is a contradiction. I fuse more words, more sentences to her raised eyebrows, and she laughs once more.
stitch by stitch teaching hands to remember
In the morning we visit the textile museum which is just a short walk from her flat. The latest exhibition shows centuries-old Chinese embroideries. I barely manage to take in the details on the signs next to the exhibits. Instead, I focus on breathing, time and again. Otherwise I’d be holding my breath. That’s what art does to me, it makes me dizzy.
white noise
sometimes eyes close
for a clearer picture
We stop in front of a long display case. My friend moves on to the one behind, then into the next room. I don’t follow her. Instead, tears run down my face. She returns and looks at me puzzled, hands me a tissue, keeps asking, “Why are you crying?” I don’t know. I raise my hands as if in defence; I just want to make her stop talking.
I believe this is the moment when the switch is thrown between us. We just don’t know it yet. After that, we keep trying to sink the land between us into Lake Constance, with no luck.
stars that are not
now
hanfu butterflies
pi & anne 