Gray skies and the wind turning cold. I find myself in the patience of deer as the wild persimmons ripen. And again in the impatience of deer, stretching upwards on hind legs, as the fruit shrivels and perfumes. Small, sweet stars, plucked down by teeth, ground into paste and swallowed. I’ve brought along a handwoven basket, which quickly brims. I treat myself on the walk home.
bitter persimmon
my face becomes
a Picasso
—The haiku “bitter persimmon” first appeared in How to
Disassemble Your Father’s Ghost (Kattywompus Press, 2017).
work has recently appeared in Acorn, Contemporary Haibun, Frogpond, The Heron’s Nest, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Modern Haiku. He is the author of a collection of haiku and haibun, How to Disassemble Your Father’s Ghost (Kattywompus Press, 2017), and his haibun story of the same name is anthologized in The Best Small Fictions 2015. With a fondness for whiskey and whippoorwills, he divides his time between the lights of Nashville and the woods of his native Kentucky.
