The town has spread out into the hills. Nearby a broken down bus bakes in the heat. A woman in a red straw hat holds a picnic basket. She shields her eyes from the sun’s glare with one hand while the other gently places the basket on the hill slope. It is the greenest of hills and matches her green dress. The bus will not be leaving here anytime soon. There is no money left in this dead tourist town for such frivolities as public transport repair. Here such a beautiful woman stands out. Already the men surround her like houseflies who smell blood.

I keep my distance. I would not want my younger sister Rebecca to find me lurking about, poking my nose in her business—for she is, as usual, in a quandary. I do not know what she did with the thousand dollars I gave her a month ago. But I know what she did not do. Even from the side mirror, I can spot the bump growing inside her belly. In a few minutes my husband will appear. As soon as these words are out in the world his hairy knuckles rap the window. I press a button and he enters my car, seating himself behind me. I got your text, he says by way of hello. He lights a cigarette without asking. Then strokes the back of my hair and asks, How long have you known about us, my darling?

Roberta Beary

is the longtime haibun editor for Modern Haiku, and co-author of Haibun: A Writer’s Guide (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2023), as well as the author of three award-winning poetry collections. Individual writing awards include Bridport Prize for Poetry, Touchstone Award for Haibun, and Kusamakura Grand Prize for Haiku. Beary’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Rattle, Atticus Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and other publications. Beary identifies as gender-fluid and calls Washington, DC (USA) and County Mayo, Ireland home.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ New Book: Haibun: A Writer’s Guide by Roberta Beary, Lew Watts and Rich Youmans, an interview in Flash Frontier (July 2023)

⚡ Featured Guest: Roberta Beary on Rattlecast 133 hosted by Tim Green, editor of Rattle poetry journal (YouTube, 28 February 2022)

⚡ Featured Author: Roberta Beary in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 12, March 2022)

⚡ Tiny Love Stories in The New York Times (8 January 2019); scroll five stories down the page for Roberta Beary’s “Now It’s All Fresh Fish” and her photograph of lobster traps in Clew Bay, Ireland.

⚡ The art of brevity, an interview by Ciara Moynihan in Mayo News (22 January 2019)