One lock of unwashed hair snipped from his corpse.
Two dollars’ worth of pocket-picked change.
One lizard pendant, one leather bracelet, a white-gold wedding band: released from neck, wrist, left-hand ring finger.
Four untouched Pall Malls crushed inside their pack.
Five flakes of loose tobacco shaken from a cashmere coat.
Six leaf bags stuffed with clothes nobody wants.
Seven pounds of pulverized bone and ash.
Eight pounds of postdated freezer-burned meat.
Nine drawers crammed with snapshots, cords, wires, batteries, charge receipts, razorblades, surgical tape, sterile gauze.
all day rain...
the purgatorial
nature of things
holds an MFA in the translation of poetry from the University of Arkansas. Her first book of poetry, Prayer for the Dead: Collected Haibun & Tanka Prose, received a 2017 Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America. Her food and travel articles and her poems appear in national and international anthologies and journals, including publications specializing in Japanese short-form poetry such as: Contemporary Haibun Online; Haibun Today; Journeys 2015: An Anthology of International Haibun; The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku (2012-2013); and The Red River Book of Haibun. Additional work is included in Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems (Dos Gatos), Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way (Village Press), Red Earth Review, and The Texas Poetry Calendar..
