Belle points to a cluster of stars above our neighbor’s chimney. “What’s that?” she asks. I follow her finger. “I think it’s Cacciatore,” I say. “And that trio next to it is Minestrone Minor, in the Great Paprika Nebula.” Her head turns toward me in that way she has. “Really? I thought it was Baba Ganoush.” She points straight up, to where three stars align. “And isn’t that Lo Mein?” I nod. “Yes. I believe sailors always use it to find their way home.” Her fingers wrap around mine and her lips rise to my ear. “It still works,” she whispers. With her free hand she points to the sky above our bedroom window and far beyond. “What’s that?” she asks, and for a moment I wonder. It could be anything, anything at all.
new love not seeing the star seeing the star
haiku, haibun, and related essays have appeared internationally in journals and
anthologies, including Modern Haiku, Haibun Today, Contemporary Haibun, and
Journey to the Interior: American Versions of Haibun (Tuttle, 1998). His
collection of linked haibun with Maggie Chula, Shadow Lines, won a Merit
Book Award from the Haiku Society of America, and a forthcoming collection, All
the Windows Lit, was a 2015 Snapshot Press eChapbook Award winner.
