My Body as Haikus

Designed by Katherine Mara.

Image Description: Photograph of a white ribcage sculpted from air dry clay resting on a ground of branches.

Lord, let my heart pass
through this wave like my body
passes through seasons

how moor means a boat
anchored in the wind’s sea storm
and a coastal grass

which is to say, I’m
wedged in water and growing
free because of it

let the rope on my
neck be this current’s tether
strung through fertile tides

curled in tempest air
of anxiety
tormenting showers

rip through shaking leaves
until I am naked, a
thing forlorn and frail

shivering off
fruit and flower, fading fair
colors, shriveling

in the cold brittle
winter, I mirror summer’s
sucked dry prunes

withered and sunken
in soil, a wrinkly corpse
rain rippling past

but wood cracks are creeks
crevices sow waterways
like veins stream our being

sighs are low-loom clouds
holding heavy and humid,
conceive moss, not mold

let this excess of
moisture grant growth near my lungs
to adorn my breath

perched ribcage branches
of fallen trees sprout stumps from
a relic body