1. to the Question And just who do you think you are?
The one who brought you into this world.
The one who pays the bills.
The one with the keys.
I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.
The owner of that dog.
The greatest.
The one and only.
You don’t know?
If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.
The reincarnation of Lassie.
It’s me, Dear. It’s me.
Didn’t you order a pizza?
I’m not who you think I am.
Yours truly.
2. to the Question Where in the world have you been?
I’ve been busy.
Around.
Went to Greenland for a stag party.
In prison.
In the toilet.
Right here waiting for you.
Trying to find myself.
I got lost.
My dog died.
My parents needed CPR.
I got married.
I can’t say for reasons of national security.
I took the long way home.
Who wants to know?
3. to the Question When did that happen?
I was in the shower when I heard the explosion.
Oh, I was almost seven years old.
That was years ago.
Just a few minutes ago, just before you arrived.
Who knows?
Way before my time.
Probably during the Neolithic Revolution.
When did what happen?
After I lost my virginity.
Before I knew what I was doing.
We were putting up hay in the barn.
I was asleep.
It’ll never happen again.
I plead the Fifth.
4. to the Question What now?
I don’t know.
Try to turn it this way.
Why don’t I get on top?
Turn it off and then turn it back on.
We can try to sneak out.
I can paddle for a while.
Add some more lighter fluid.
Let’s sleep on it.
We can always adopt.
Bury it in the woods.
The coffee shop down the street has good brownies.
We can try to get our money back.
That depends.
Let’s start over.
is a regular contributor to haiku, haibun, and tanka journals. His fiction, nonfiction,
and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash, Rattle, Modern Haiku,
KYSO Flash, MacQueen’s Quinterly, SurVision, Haibun Today, The Haibun
Journal, and Contemporary Haibun Online (the latter for which he served
as content editor from July 2014 thru January 2020).
His chapbook of haibun, tanka prose, and prose poems, Ethiopian Time (Red Bird
Chapbooks, 2014), was an honorable mention in the Touchstone Book Awards. His chapbook
Conversation Starters in a Language No One Speaks (SurVision Books, 2018) was
a winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize in 2018. He is also the author most recently
of a collection of prose poems, haibun, and senryu, My Thology: Not Always True
But Always Truth (Cyberwit, 2019); and an e-chapbook, What I Say to You
(proletaria.org, 2020).
