haibun || Sheila E. Murphy

Awaiting

When you cauterize my innocence, I feel a slow fatigue come on. What window will I sliver toward, to feel a seeping daylight once the diamond's gone? Silver slated to return untimely dividends sprawls across imaginary lines. What children will I hold beneath the candle light? Whose brow will hurt with generosity that might have fed each future? The cornice we intended has been laced with coats of white-out, to preclude the sill's repeating rain. One tires of mandatory naivete that plays well only in dampness. After desert pries loose sentences, the speed of thought capsizes early timber. The dazzling actors in our psyche practice being numb to suffering. Then recoil amid the loosely termed "real thing" that emerges. One waits for rescue even before entering harm's way, as if to validate the sanctity of "things to count on." A full measure of confidence restores continuance until the modest fall from grace is noted by recorders who indulge in paper before trees become extinct. We're lining up against a new routine as plenary as first frost. Sentences repeat a confidential undertone. They mesh with deeds that sprint out of our recollection. Now the time reformulates the stasis of an energetic element that used to serve as anchors for our mindset.

Early shadows, pale headlines, plants crossing the sidewalk, sound of brush strokes