Chewing
smacking
Black Jack gum
so easy to sass
Mom back

 

:::

 

Family portrait
in everyone’s mouth
the same set of teeth

 

:::

 

The night
I moved through
a fever of 104
I swam
from Boston to Europe

 

:::

 

Paris moon

Copyrighted © by Alexis Rotella. All rights reserved.
Haiga appears here with artist’s permission.

Enough light
to read by
Paris moon

 

:::

 

New lover
his hands find
my mole

 

:::

 

It tells me
I’m in need of repair
morning mirror

 

:::

 

This mask
I wear
a prayer

 

 

Publication Notes:

“The night” (kyoka, 11 words) republished here with poet’s permission from Rattlecast #75 (12 January 2021)

Paris moon (haiga) republished here with poet’s permission from her Facebook galleries (18 November 2014)

“This mask” (senryu, 6 words) republished here with poet’s permission from her blog, My art, my writings, your health (4 December 2020)

Alexis Rotella

is an award-winning poet, editor, and digital artist. She recently received two Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards, in 2019 for a collection of her haibun, Scratches on the Moon, and in 2018 for Unsealing Our Secrets, a MeToo Anthology (2018) of short poems about sexual abuse, which she curated/edited. Her latest book, Dancing the Tarantella (2019), includes a variety of her own unpublished tanka and cherita, some of which she shared when interviewed by Rattle editor Tim Green (Rattlecast #75, 12 January 2021). Their interview begins with her reading of her haibun “Empty Souls” (at 5:07 in the video), a 2020 Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist which is also printed in Issue 70 of Rattle.

Ms. Rotella has been writing Japanese poetry forms in English since the late 1970s. Her work has been published throughout the world, and she is the author of dozens of books, many of which are available on Amazon and Kindle. Her passions also include her acupuncture practice and mobile photography. Her mobile art has been showcased in Porto, Portugal and in Florence and Milan, Italy and continues to be featured in many on-line venues. Her digital art is for sale online at Alexis Rotella Designs.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Purple: A Parable by Alexis Rotella, with pictures by Diane Katz (Rosenberry Books, 2008)

⚡ Purple, the first poem Alexis ever wrote, and one which has been reprinted many times during the decades since