4 haiku and a tanka

Wonder what monster ants
Go wandering through tunnels
Inside mounds of mulch?


Just a little wind
Stands between John Siemer and
his haiku poem.


No matter which way
I turn my back to the wind--
Hide and Seek I lose.


Single brown oak leaf
Lies in the grass at my feet,
The start of a pile.


The roaring of trucks
On the divided highway
Overpowers birds’
Peeping and cheeping—even
The protracted locust buzz.

Each Day Without Her

Each day is, above all else, a day without her.
I wear her bathrobe (without the tissues in the pockets),
With her paring knife I cut peaches for my cereal,
I read Newsweek by the light of her floor lamp.

I wear her bathrobe without the tissues in the pockets,
I toss my recycling into her red bin.
I read Newsweek by the light of her floor lamp.
My face becomes her face in her mirror.

I toss my recycling into her red bin,
A squirrel comes to eat at her bird feeder.
My face becomes her face in her mirror.
If she could just join me for tea at her table...

With her paring knife I cut peaches for my cereal,
A squirrel comes to eat from her bird feeder.
If she could just join me for tea at her table...
Each day is, above all else, a day without her.

Lesson

When his mother pushes, he resists.
"Lean back, I've got you. I won't let go," she coaxes.
On his back he struggles to stay high in the water.
"Stretch your neck out, stick your chin up.
I've got you," she lies.
When he relaxes, just a little,
she withdraws the supporting arm.
He chokes on water and cries,
"That's enough. No more swimming lessons!"

She retreats to a lounge chair in the sun.
He plays, steering a toy boat at the side of the pool.
Soon he calls, "Mom, watch this!" and
he dunks his head under the water,
lifts it up and grins.
Beaming, she claps her hands.

"Get ready, get set, go!" and
he races another five-year-old into the pool.
Later, he flops over sideways in the water,
then kicks and squirms to the other side.
For an encore he performs an underwater somersault.

Katrina of Avon Place

I cleaned up by writing a check for
$2169.09 made out to Jagers and Sons.
I say I cleaned up.
I didn’t, of course. My work was easy.
The Jagers took care of the cremation,
the interment of the ashes next to my father’s,
the engraving on the headstone.

That same check covered the death certificates,
the guestbook at the service,
and the placing of obituaries in The Messenger,
The Public Opinion, The Ocean County Observer.
I drew the line there.
We didn’t need to send to The Dispatch or The Asbury Park Press.
That would be excessive.

Peter and Mark asked why.
They wondered was I being tight.
I didn’t want to waste her money, true.
I say her money.
It was our money by then, of course.

Anyway, one week after the D.O.D.
Mark drove off in her LaSabre loaded with the Spode
and the Westmoreland for the granddaughters.
Peter and I divvied up the stash of soap and toilet paper.
He drove off to Louisville with the boys
and with frozen vegetable soup she had made
I wondered when. I couldn’t have eaten it.
Funny, I could eat what was left of her bag of bite-sized Snickers.
And I grabbed the ball of string she had wrapped,
tying maybe a hundred small pieces together.

Before I left I ironed the white t-shirt
she had left on the ironing board.
I changed the message on her answering machine.
I thought about saying “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”
I say I thought about saying that. I didn’t, of course.
I turned the heat back and shut off the water.
I pulled the door to 43 Avon Place closed
and locked it.
That was easy, like pushing the red Staples button.

I say easy.
It was strikingly easy to clean up the pieces of her life.
Of course the storm hadn’t yet hit.