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
pi & anne 